


One good stretch

by andeemae



Series: Our dreams assured [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: And accidental injury, Embarrassing Situations, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, and definitely a bit ridiculous, this might be a little bit cracky?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:00:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25709353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andeemae/pseuds/andeemae
Summary: Droids, brothers, aides, and senators mix with the worst luck in the galaxy, and Fox and Riyo get caught up in the nonsense. Occasionally serious, but mostly ridiculous.
Relationships: Riyo Chuchi/CC-1010 | Fox
Series: Our dreams assured [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977586
Comments: 206
Kudos: 237





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.
> 
> AN: This is the first time I’ve written for this pair, and I’m not terribly confident in my SW lore, so if there are any glaring mistakes, I’m apologizing in advance.

Artificial thunder rolls across the air as the rain eases, dwindling down to little more than a drizzle. It’s controlled, scheduled and broadcasted, nothing like the raging storms on Kamino, but it clears the exhaust filled air. 

It puddles on the roof, running in little streams to the grates, vanishing to pipes that funnel it to the treatment facilities to be processed and made potable or recycled for the next scheduled rain. Which is anyone’s guess, and sometimes it’s best not to know.

Fox watches a droplet trickle down his line of vision, drip off and land on the wet ground at his feet before reaching up and releasing the seals.

Pulling his bucket off, he sighs as the cool damp air hits his face.

Normally, outside the safety of barracks, he never takes his helmet off. It’s protocol as well as good sense. They protect from attacks and the overly curious stares of the senators and citizens as well as keep them connected to each other.

Still, as most of the staff at the Senate are gone for the night, to the entertainment district or somewhere even less wholesome, the chatter on his HUD has mostly been gossip about the Quarren aide vanishing with yet another Twi’lek, and he’s alone on a barren rooftop, it’s probably safe to savor the freshly cleaned Coruscanti air.

Bracing against the outer wall, he squints down at one of the back exits of the Senate building. 

Through the transparisteel he spots a droid cleaning the floors on the lowest level, and a few floors up another is scrubbing windows. Nothing extraordinary. Thankfully. He may get a break yet.

Most of the offices are dark, but he spots light coming from the area occupied by the Outer Rim planets. He counts windows, rows up and over, then runs through the floor plan before determining it’s the Pantoran senator’s office. Riyo Chuchi.

She’s one of the newest senators, young and soft spoken. A bit timid, in Fox’s mind, to be a senator, but no one cares what his opinion is on what a senator ought to be. Maybe he doesn’t know. 

“At least she’s pretty,” Thire had told him, when Fox expressed concern over her demeanor. “I’ll take quiet and pretty over whatever the hell that bantha breathed fool of a senator from Malastare is.”

Fox had just rolled his eyes.

Pretty though she was, if she didn’t start finding her voice, she wouldn’t be around for anyone to enjoy looking at. Not that Fox was looking, but he didn’t want to deprive his brothers of one small pleasantry in their short, often brutal, lives. 

Frowning, he tilts his head, tries to spot some movement or the flicker of a shadow, determine if she’s up or if the light was simply forgotten, before sighing. Nothing.

If he were to guess, he’d say she'd stayed late to prepare herself for a committee meeting, and is now sleeping at her desk. She wouldn’t be the first senator he’d found in that state. 

Lifting his comm, he starts to ask the team patrolling that corridor to check on her, then stops.

She’s young and doesn’t seem to get much in the way of respect. Females, he’s noticed, are given far less latitude, regardless of species. Getting caught napping in her office is hardly a disaster, but lacking a foothold of respect, it certainly wouldn’t help her gain any.

Despite his troops' predilection for gossip, he doubts any would see a sleeping senator, even a pretty one, as anything worth discussing. Which makes it that much more likely they’d innocently say something. Then the little senator would be dealing with snide remarks from politicians twice her age who’ve done far more damning things than falling asleep at their desk. Even in his short time working with the Senate, he’s seen elder statesmen chew up the less seasoned for far less. 

The intricacies of the Senate, who has political weight and who has to struggle to get so much as a word in, and the pettiness with which they deal with one another, irritates Fox the more he learns it. 

Senator Chuchi seems...nice, at least from what little he’s interacted with her in the weeks since her arrival. Uncertain but polite, she’d even asked after their names when she’d been introduced, though she’d not gotten an answer before being swept away for orientation.

He’ll go check on her himself. The fewer people involved, the less the chance she’ll end up mocked for something so silly.

Taking a few more lungfuls of fresh air, Fox unclips his bucket from his belt and sighs.

No sense putting it off. He’d gotten a few minutes of peace, that’s more than most days. 

Turning on his heels, he cuts across the roof toward the stairwell, glancing one last time toward the now clear sky as he reaches for the door.

He’s barely looked back down when the door swings open, hitting him squarely in the face. 

This is why the bucket is supposed to stay on, he thinks grimly, as he tastes copper and his nose begins throbbing.

His helmet clatters to the ground as a female voice yelps in surprise, staying his natural instinct, to grab his blaster and defend himself from attack.

“I’m so sorry!” Her voice is too high, panicked and loud. “I didn’t know anyone-I didn’t think anyone would be up here!”

Grimacing and holding his hand to his nose, trying to stem the blood, Fox’s eyes water as he tries to focus on her. 

Pale purple hair, blue toned skin with gold markings, tiny, the Pantoran senator. 

She’s still babbling an apology as she unwinds a scarf from her waist, begins balling it up in her fist.

“...and I checked the holomap of the Senate building and saw I could come up here and just peak across to see if I’d left the light on, and-oh Commander, I really am sorry!”

Fox has barely processed what she’s said when he realizes she’s holding the scarf out to him.

“For your nose,” she explains, when she spots the uncertainty in his look. 

“That’s not necessary, ma’am,” he grunts, hand still on his nose, blood trickling over his lips.

“Please,” she says, “it’s the least I can do.”

Her eyes are wide and worried, and despite not wanting to ruin an article of clothing probably worth more than him, something he’s heard more than one senator squawk about, he holds his hand out. Snubbing her offer will only cause him more of a headache. 

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She watches as he gently presses the scarf to his nose, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

“Do you think it’s broken?”

Fox almost groans. If there’s any mercy in the galaxy it won’t be. He’s already struggling to concoct a plausible explanation for the magnificent bruise he’s likely to have come morning, if he’s got a broken nose on top of that he isn’t sure he’ll be able to bluff it away. Facial bruising with a helmet on is possible. A broken nose? Not likely. 

The mocking for falling asleep in the office she’d receive would pale in comparison to the endless torture Fox’s brothers would inflict on him. Face smashed in by a senator, and one that barely reaches his shoulders at that.

“It’s fine.”

She winces, though whether at his tone or in disbelief, he isn’t sure.

Ignoring her concerned expression, Fox blots his nose a few times and checks. It’s stopped bleeding.

Carefully, he touches his nose, inspecting it and sighing. It seems no worse for wear. 

“No lasting damage,” he assures her, forcing what he hopes is a smile. 

She looks unconvinced, eyes the splattered blood down the front of his chest plate.

“I’ll sort this out in the fresher,” he adds, gesturing to the blood.

Preferably before he runs into any other Coruscant Guard.

Still looking guilty, she crosses her arms and glances toward the back of the main building, where her office is. 

“I did leave it on.”

Fox glances over, finally registers what she’d said was her reason for being on his rooftop.

She’d been leaving, couldn’t remember if she’d turned her light on, decided to come up and look across the roof to check rather than taking the long walk back across.

“I’ll have the patrol switch it off for you,” he tells her, biting his tongue. She could’ve tapped into the locked Senate net and checked it that way, saved her scarf and his pride.

She nods, brushes a loose strand from her face, then peeks up at him through her lashes. 

“I’m sorry for the trouble.”

Fox dabs his nose absently. The scarf smells nice, like some fruit he’s never encountered. 

“It’s no trouble, Senator.”

“I bloodied you’re nose!”

Rolling his eyes, Fox chuckles. “I’ve had worse injuries, I promise.”

That doesn’t seem to comfort her much, purple lips still puckered in a frown, though she does nod.

“It’s my own fault,” he adds. “Should’ve had my helmet on.”

The look that crosses her face isn’t one he’s seen much, something like distress and indignation. He thinks the only other time he’s encountered it was with the Naboo Senator’s Aides, when they’d been tasked with teaching the newly appointed Coruscant Guard to dance in case they were ever dragged out during a gala.

Both girls had looked at Stone with the same indefinable expression over some long forgotten comment. 

Senator Chuchi fixes her expression, though it still seems fragile and uncertain.

“You were enjoying a moment, that’s allowed.” 

Clearly it shouldn’t be. Enjoyable moments evidently come at a price, and that price was his nose and her scarf. 

Without warning, she drops down, and for half a heartbeat Fox panics, remembering the wife of the Senator from Pamarthe and her unexpected assault early on in his time on Coruscant. He’d escaped with little more than a missing glove, but that was more than enough. All his troopers had been warned against being in closed quarters alone with any senate staff or their families after that. 

Stumbling back, he’s already got his hands up, head down, a stern explanation ready on his lips that he serves at the pleasure of the Republic but not to pleasure the Republic, when she pops back up, bucket in hand. 

There’s a tiny smile on her lips that fades when she notices the space between them has grown, the anxious expression on Fox’s face. 

Studying him, she holds the helmet securely against her middle. 

“I’m sorry. Am I not allowed to pick it up?”

Brushing off the momentary panic, Fox shakes his head. 

“It’s fine, ma’am. Just startled me.”

Her frown deepens, and Fox knows exactly why. He’s a bred soldier, trained from the moment he was decanted to withstand all nine of Corellia’s hells, a lady ducking down to retrieve something for him shouldn’t startle him. 

His lie rings false, and his face probably gives him away as well, especially to a politician. 

Still staring at him, she drums her fingers on his bucket, forcing some of the worry out of her face. 

“I’ve never seen any of you without your helmet on. I wasn’t quite sure what you looked like under there.” 

“Not much to see,” he mumbles, focusing on her blue fingers turning the helmet over so she can look inside. 

Fox hopes it doesn’t reek of sweat and heat, caf breath and that rancid sandwich Thire had shared with him at midday. 

She looks up and gives him a soft smile. 

“You’re too hard on yourself.” 

Face burning, Fox tries not to examine that statement too closely. 

After a few more moments, she holds the helmet out to him.

“Again, my apologies for disrupting your solitude and...hitting you with the door.”

Taking it from her, Fox winces. 

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that, actually.”

Nodding, she makes a pained face. “Of course, Commander…”

Fox answers automatically. “CC-1010.”

Eyes widening, she clasps her hands, nods. 

“Oh-of course, CC-1010.”

It sounds so ridiculous coming from her, and she looks so let down by it, that Fox gives in.

“But I go by Fox.”

Brushing another wayward strand from her face, she shakes her head. 

“It’s alright. I imagine names are a very complicated thing among the troops. I can call you by whatever you want.”

He isn’t quite sure what she means by that, but judging by her wilted expression, it’s not meant as a slight. What he does understand is that she’s giving him a choice, to share his name or not. 

“I appreciate that.” He presses his fingers to the helmet, still warm from being pressed to her belly, the phantom of her body radiating through his gloves. “But I think ‘Fox’ will do fine, Senator.”

She flushes a gorgeous shade of indigo and nods. 

“Riyo,” she murmurs. “You’re welcome to call me Riyo, Fox.”

Shaking his head, genuinely disappointed for some unknown reason, Fox frowns at her. 

“That’d be against regulations.” Unfortunately.

“Oh, yes, of course, Commander.” She shoots him an apologetic smile. 

He suddenly doesn’t like his rank, or at least hearing it from her. 

Her comm beeps and she fumbles a bit digging it from the folds of her skirts. 

“I’m sorry, Zekkariah, I got delayed.”

“Just checking, Senator Chuchi.”

Fox would never claim to read body language, not like Senator Amidala’s aides, but being surrounded by identical men has given him a bit more insight to the quirks of non-clones. 

If he were to guess, he’d say she’s a bit lonely. Still freshly arrived on a hostile, foreign planet, no allies yet, no friends, not even an aide or bodyguard willing to let her in arm’s length. It gives her offering of her name a bit more weight. 

Sighing, she tucks it back away, bows her head to Fox. 

“I should be going. Again, I’m very sorry about…” she gestures to his blood spattered front. 

Smiling, a little more naturally than before, Fox shifts his weight, balances his bucket in his hands. 

“It’s fine.” He licks his lips, considers his words carefully. “And, I think, if you’d be okay with it, that is, if we’re on our own we can be a bit lax with the regs.”

It’s a concession he’s not likely to ever be held to, but the offer, at least, will make her happy. He doubts greatly he’ll ever be alone again with her. 

That thought settles bitter in his stomach. 

A smile creeps onto her lips.

“Just Fox and Riyo?”

He smiles at the softness in her voice. 

“Just Riyo and Fox.”

She beams, brighter than any supernova. 

“I’d like that very much.” 

Ducking her head, she turns back toward the door, tossing one last smile at him over her shoulder before she goes. 

“May your evening be gentle and safe, Fox.”

Fox nods. “Yours as well, M-Riyo.”

He waits until the door has clicked shut and her footsteps have faded down the stairwell before turning his bucket right side down, starts to put it on. 

Then something flutters down to the still rain shimmering ground from his hand. Her scarf. 

Crouching down, Fox gently picks it up, examines the blood soaked into the edge he’d pressed to his nose. 

Running it through his fingers, he wonders if the laundry droid can scrub the blood out. He certainly can’t return it in this state. 

One handed, he replaces his bucket, listening for the hiss of the seal before stuffing the scarf in his belt. 

Either he’ll get it cleaned or he’ll find a way to replace it, though how he’ll do that he isn’t sure. He doesn’t exactly get paid.

The promise of at least one more meeting with her, though, makes him certain he can find a way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.
> 
> AN: I’m so sorry. This is not nearly as sweet as the last chapter, and it’s a bit ridiculous, very ridiculous, actually, but everyone could use some laughter, right? Hopefully.

“What do you suppose is in it?”

Fox grunts in response to Stone’s question, watches as Rys inspects the label plastered to the top of the large box.

One of the many duties that had been assigned to the Coruscant Guard was inspection of all packages delivered to the senate. That had led to some very...interesting discoveries, about the beings they were supposed to lay their lives down for. Some pleasant, some downright disturbing. 

Most were small deliveries. Food stuffs from home worlds, some that looked delectable and more that barely looked edible, questionable looking clothing, fabrics, jewelry…

The boys scanned for explosives and poisons, tried not to do any damage, then passed them along to their destination. 

Large packages normally posed no more trouble than any other. Orn Free Taa’s packages, however, caused issues no matter their size. 

“The sender is illegible,” Rys announces. 

“Well that’s a promising sign,” Stone mutters. “And I’m guessing he’s got it wrapped up so we can’t see the guts.”

Rys’ snort of laughter echoes over their helmet link. 

“Right you are, Sir.”

Of course. That pompous gundark isn’t the only senator to ignore the safety regulation forbidding the use of unscannable packing, but he is the most frequent offender. 

Fox sighs, cracks his neck, then gestures to the box. 

“Break it open.” Best to get the unpleasantness over and done before the entire guard comes in to switch shifts. 

They’d made that mistake exactly once, and had to deal with a whole squad of shinies helping clean up edible undergarments. The container had overheated in transport and hundreds of fruity scented panties had exploded out onto the floor of the dock. 

“Why would anyone want to eat underwear?” Stone asked, looking red in the face as he shoveled a stack back into the box. 

Thire had shrugged and picked up an insubstantial looking pair of panties, sniffed them. 

“Huh. Muja fruit.”

Fox shot him a look. “Don’t you dare eat that.”

“That’s not a warning I need.” 

The Senator’s droid had thrown a fit when the package had finally been delivered. 

“He called it an ‘invasion of privacy’ and a ‘gross miscarriage of duty’,” Jek explained, when he’d returned from the Senator’s apartment. “Demanded you contact him as soon as possible.”

Fox had, though it was a pointless effort. Orn Free Taa had simply wanted to wail and groan about the so-called ‘damage’ done to both his delicate delivery and reputation.

It had taken all Fox’s will not to snap that neither the panties nor his reputation had changed as far as he was concerned. 

The Senator had then demanded all future goods be delivered by a command class clone. Presumably so he could bellow and moan about injustice and embarrassment at the moment of occurrence. 

Jek had laughed at that. 

“I’ve never been so happy to be a grunt.”

Fox had set up a rotation, each of the four commanders trading off who had the good fortune of couriering whatever vile or bizarre thing Senator Taa had brought into their lives. 

Thire had complained for a week when he’d had to transport a particularly pungent flower arrangement from Florrum. 

“I’ve taken six showers, and I still smell like feet!”

“You weren’t exactly Naboo sea breeze fresh to begin with, Vod,” Thorn teased. “Maybe we should order you some of those muja fruit scented panties, might help.”

Thorn’s glee at his brother’s misfortune hadn’t lasted long. The next delivery had been his, and had consisted of a dozen fancy nunas that managed to escape in the main atrium of the apartments. 

Thire had made certain the footage of Thorn chasing a particularly rambunctious female, who’d defecated on his kama and boots before finally being subdued, was distributed to the entire Coruscant Guard. 

That in mind, Fox grimaces as the box finally hisses open, the lid pushed away as they all step closer and peek in. 

At first he feels relieved. It’s his turn to play delivery boy and it seems like an unextraordinary job for once. 

Inside, neatly stacked, are hundreds of white boxes. Each one is sealed and tightly packed in, none threatening to explode out. It’s disconcertingly benign. 

Stone carefully plucks one out, stares at it in confusion before dropping it and stepping back, face flushing scarlet. 

“That Twi’lek is a menace.”

Frowning, Fox squints at the box as Thire reads the blue type on the side. 

“Pre lubricated with smart technology to fit any size pen…oh.”

Ears burning, Fox pushes the box back into the stack. 

“That’s-uh...that’s a lot of prophylactics,” Thire finally says, eyeing the deceptive boxes with a grimace. 

“Well, he’s an ambitious Twi’lek.”

“Ambitious? More like delusional.” Stone makes a face. “Does he really expect to have that much sex?”

“Orgy?” Jek offers, looking ashamed to even suggest it. 

“Thank you, Jek, for that mental image,” Stone grumbles. “I’m gonna need medical leave for pain and suffering just from the thought.”

“Ugh! This one says it vibrates.” Thire leans over and looks at the box’s label more closely. “And glows in the dark.”

He looks up, expression pained. 

“Why?”

Stone and Jek simply shrug then look at Fox. 

Fox rolls his eyes. “I don’t know!”

And he’s not entirely sure he wants to. 

“Well, looks like another mystery for the holonet to explain,” Stone finally says. 

Flipping the lid back on, Fox huffs. At least they didn’t explode out. 

-

Fox taps his foot, grinds his teeth and waits as the droid slowly counts each box. 

It’s a tedious process, but it keeps the Senator from throwing a fit later, so Fox and the others endure. 

Looking out the window, Fox squints down toward the speeder landing platform. 

It’s a poor design. Too open and exposed to both the cross traffic in the speedway and the endless madness that is the Cato Casino and Ballroom across from it. He’s complained about it, but the majority of the senators living in the vast apartment complex had brushed off his suggestions. Their safety, it seemed, mattered far less to them than the ease of accessibility to their vices. 

Down on the platform, he spots a group awaiting a landing. He can’t make out much about them without the aid of his bucket and visor, but he can tell they’re not human. 

Blue skin, probably Pantoran, and his guess is confirmed a moment later when an armored transport glides in, the Pantoran crest in gold emblazoned on the side. Another thing he’s complained about. Ostentatious transport. They might as well put a target on the blasted things. 

He’s a moment away from throwing on his bucket and doing a scan of the rooftops before Senator Chuchi disembarks, most of the Coruscant Guard on duty are shiny, fresh from Kamino, but is cut short by a cold hand tapping his shoulder. 

“Everything seems to be in order,” the droid finally tells him, it’s tinny voice clipped and cool.

Not bothering with a response, Fox nods and waits for his dismissal. The sooner he’s away from Senator Taa’s filthy apartment the better. The number of bodily fluids and unspeakable items undoubtedly littered about makes his skin crawl. 

He glances back out the window and sees the retinue has briskly hurried Senator Chuchi off the platform, into the lower levels of the building and out of his limited vision. At least they moved efficiently. 

For some reason, he’s annoyed he hadn’t seen her exit. 

Shaking the irritation off, it’s probably just frustration he hadn’t been able to analyze their protocol for arrivals and departures, Fox turns his attention back to the droid. 

It totters around, then in one jerky motion grabs a box and shuffles towards Fox, holds it out. 

“My Master has advised me to gift you this box of organic fluid shields, as a symbol of his gratitude for your continued discretion.”

For a moment Fox stares and tries to process what he’s heard. It isn’t until the droid pushes the box against his chest plate that he startles back to his senses. 

“Ah-no, thank you,” he says automatically, already knowing it’ll do no good. 

The droid’s head tilts. 

“My Master is expressing gratitude. This box contains enough penile sheaths to afford you and several of your men one physical pleasure event each.”

Fox winces. He never knew he didn’t want to hear that phrase. 

He pushes the box at Fox’s chest again. 

Sighing, Fox reluctantly takes the box. 

“Excellent,” the droid says in the same level tone. “I knew appealing to your base desires would bring you around. You organics are always following your gonads.”

Of course he would think that, his master is one of the most debauched beings on Coruscant, and that’s saying something. 

Rolling his eyes, Fox follows the droid to the turbo, discreetly tossing the box into a flowerpot as they pass by it. With any luck, it’ll be a plant that eats garbage. 

“A pleasure, as always, CC-1010.”

Nodding, Fox starts to unclip his helmet from his belt as the lift doors slide open. 

He freezes when instead of an empty staff lift, it’s stuffed full of Pantorans. 

“Senator Chuchi,” the droid greets them as Fox tries to process what he’s seeing. “Is your lift still malfunctioning?”

She nods, smiling sweetly and brushing a strand of lavender hair from her face. 

“Unfortunately. I’m told the parts are delayed.”

Fox bites his tongue. Essential parts for a Senator’s turbo are delayed, but Orn Free Taa’s delightful order of party prophylactics arrive on schedule. Typical. 

“Of course,” the droid says, with as much sympathy as it has programmed into it. 

Senator Chuchi’s smile widens as she spots Fox and his stomach churns. 

“Commander Fox! What a pleasant surpr-” 

“Has the building been compromised?” One of the men with her asks, cutting across her excitement with his panicked tone. Planetary security by the design on his shoulder patch. He looks to the second man. “Were you notified of any breeches?”

The other man is mid head shake when Fox cuts in. 

“There have been no compromises.” He shoots the droid a filthy look. “I’m here on a transport.”

Of a sort. 

They’re too relieved to have not missed a major breech to ask any questions. 

Fox makes a mental note to investigate the planetary security for Pantora when he gets back to his office. They don’t seem up to snuff. Any security worth their weight would’ve known without a doubt there was no unknown incident, and they would’ve had a more secure method of getting their Senator to her apartment. 

They’re sloppy. 

He’d wring them out if they were his men, but then, his men would never be so unprepared and unprofessional. 

“Are you taking the staff lift, Commander?” Senator Chuchi asks, her lips puckered in a frown and her brow pulled together in concern. 

He nods quickly. 

“Yes ma’am. The main lifts don’t go to the roof where our landing zone is.”

Which is more or less the truth. The public and private lifts all stop short of the Guard landing pad. He’d have to climb several flights of stairs if he took them. 

The Guard isn’t allowed on those lifts anyways. Protocol dictates they only access lifts designated for droids, servants, and goods. He isn’t sure which category he and his brothers fall into. 

She doesn’t look placated, not entirely, but this isn’t the time nor the place to discuss clone rights, and she seems to sense that. 

“Well, you’re welcome to squeeze in with us, if you’d like.”

There’s plenty of room for Fox, though he might have to jam himself in a bit. It’ll be tight, but not uncomfortable, and he at least hadn’t eaten anything vile before coming. 

Still, her retinue seem less than thrilled at the prospect of sharing their limited space with him.

He’s almost decided to give in, tell her he’ll wait for the next one, even has the words ready to roll off his tongue, when he spots the smarmy smirks exchanged by the security guards. They sense his hesitation. They think they’ve scared him off. 

Setting his jaw, Fox nods. 

“I think I’ll take that offer, Senator.”

She beams, beautifully oblivious to the irritation around her. 

Stepping in, he’s careful to take up they’re precious personal space before settling himself comfortably between the taller guard and Senator Chuchi. 

The space is a bit more limited than he’d anticipated. 

He angles himself so that his back is to the man and the Senator is to his front. She’s so close he can feel heat radiating from her body and smell the soap on her skin and wafting from her hair. It’s the same fruity scent as her scarf he’s yet to get cleaned, still tucked in his belt. 

He’s so distracted by the closeness that he doesn’t see the droid shuffling back to the door. An unforgivable and unfortunate oversight.

“CC-1010! You’ve forgotten your penile sheaths!”

Even if the droid hadn’t made it to the door, his shouts were more than enough to turn the lift atmosphere from tense to awkward in nanoseconds. 

Before Fox can even fully turn, block the box, the droid has shoved it in. Without thinking, Fox’s hands take it, gripping it so tightly it dents inward. 

“You must’ve dropped it,” the droid supplies, turning on his heels and shuffling away as the doors slide closed. 

Looking at the box, Senator Chuchi mouths the words ‘penile sheaths’ as she tilts her head, nose wrinkling up as she peers at the blue lettering. 

Fox feels heat rising on his face, creeping up his neck and over his cheeks, setting his ears ablaze. He should’ve put the bucket back on quicker. 

He tries to tuck the lettering against his chest and under his arm, belatedly realizing it’s been helpfully labeled on both sides. 

“Assorted novelty condoms…”

Her eyes widen and her cheeks turn a deep shade of indigo.

He hears one of the women gasp, a bit dramatically, her blue hand shooting up and covering her mouth as she eyes the box in horror. 

She pulls Senator Chuchi back, as if a few millimeters will protect her from the shame of proximity to an unopened box of condoms. 

“They...vibrate,” the other woman, a bit older, a few whispers of silver white in her pale purple hair, reads before nodding slowly. “Well, that’s-that’s quite thoughtful of you...I suppose.”

“They aren’t-I-it’s-” Fox stammers, tries to ease his grip on the box, the last thing he needs is the blasted thing bursting open in the lift. Novelty condoms flying everywhere as Pantoran planetary security fling themselves over Senator Chuchi to spare her the shame of such things touching her. 

Fox was trained to operate under pressure, firefights and explosions, not explain why he’s got a bulk box of condoms in his possession. 

He can’t form a coherent sentence. Fox isn’t sure he’s ever experienced embarrassment until this moment.

A bead of sweat trickles down the back of his neck and his mouth goes dry. 

“Why do you need that many?” The younger aide asks, looking as though she genuinely does not want the answer. 

Considering some of the filthy rumors Fox has heard floating around about clones, he doesn’t doubt she’s probably wary of what he might say. 

“Well, they obviously aren’t his,” Senator Chuchi quickly answers. 

Fox almost gets offended, though he can’t for the life of him determine why, then realizes she’s trying to defend him. 

“He made a delivery for that creep, Senator Taa.” She looks over her shoulder at her aides. “Remember that vile welcome basket he sent?”

Her voice is stronger than it normally is. There’s a firmness and a certainty to it she regularly lacks. She may not be quite as timid as Fox imagined, just a bit cautious, perhaps. He hopes she eventually finds her voice on the senate floor, defending her ideals and people, rather than saving it for turbo rides, defending a man gripping a now battered box of condoms to his chest. 

Both aides blush at the memory, nod.

Senator Chuchi’s face tips back up at Fox, her nose wrinkled in disgust as her face flushes a darker indigo. 

“It was absolutely distasteful. We filed a complaint. Not that anything was done about it.”

Fox counts back in his head, to the arrival of the edible underpants, and scowls when he realizes it coincided with the new senate arrivals. Creep indeed.

If she’d filed the complaint with him, he’d have ensured the bastard would have no need for any kind of condom, novelty or otherwise. 

The lift slows, stops, and the doors silently glide open.

The two security guards exit first, followed by the younger aide, then the older lady, casting a curious glance over her shoulder at her senator. 

“I’m sorry you’re stuck dealing with such-” she grimaces, glancing at the box “-unpleasantness.”

It has its perks, he thinks dimly, not fully certain what the thought even means. 

“Hardly your fault, ma’am.”

A small smile twitches at the edges of her lips.

“I can still feel sympathy,” she tells him. 

She pats his forearm as she leaves, casting him a final look and parting words, so soft he nearly misses them.

“Have a pleasant evening, Fox.”

He watches her aides hurry her off, the hem of her dress vanishing out of view just before the doors slide shut. 

Tucking the cursed box under his arm, he’ll save them for strategic embarrassment against one of his brothers, Fox unclips his bucket from his belt. 

A small smile tugs at his lips. Being a courier of the bizarre isn’t so terrible.

He lets himself smile.

“You too, Riyo.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.
> 
> AN: Not as much nonsense as the last chapter, but still a bit ridiculous. Sorry y’all. Also, considering a chapter from Riyo’s pov with some of the events, but haven’t made any solid decisions yet.

Fox ignores Thorn’s complaining about the smell as they march past the droids waiting to repair the garbage compactors. Not even the filters in their buckets completely block the odor rising from the garbage chutes. 

They’d malfunctioned three days prior. Someone, Fox greatly suspects one of the Gamorrean guards working for the Sullustan Senator, had stuffed a pungent, rotting...something, down a chute and clogged the exit. It went unnoticed until it backed fully up, filling the wing occupied by several outer rim Senators with the aroma of decomposition and, when a few of the aides got sick from the stench, vomit. 

“Get them out of here,” Fox had growled over the closed channel with his men. They had enough problems trying to unwedge whatever the hell was lodged in the chute without having to call in medics for the delicate sensibilities of senate aides.

Clone engineers had been called in, because despite having all the funds and technologies of the greater galaxy at their disposal, the Galactic Senate apparently didn’t have droids with the abilities to remove an unknown organic material from their garbage chute. Or at the very least, they lacked the patience to wait for them to get the job done. Manpower, it seemed, was quicker and didn’t require recoding any droids. Manual removal would be messy, but cleaning up senate messes, literally, was evidently being added to the ever expanding list of Coruscant Guard duties. 

Engineering hadn’t said as much, but their feelings on the matter, when they’d been told they needed to fix the issue, were plain in their body language. 

Absolute bantha shit. 

“This isn’t what I was designed for,” Thorn huffs again, shaking his head. “We’re never getting this smell out of our blacks, you do know that, right?”

Fox sighs. 

“Yeah.” 

He winces as the engineers drop their heavy looking saw, covered in an unidentifiable sludge, to the ground with a thud. 

“This is voiding my warranty,” one of the engineers says over the comm, earning a round of laughter and agreements in response. 

“This is almost as bad as when those pigs wrecked the freshers over on the Senate deck.”

Someone groans. 

“I thought we’d all agreed never to speak of that again?”

“What hap-”

“We’re not speaking of it!”

Fox mutes the channels, watching Thorn’s shoulders shake in silent laughter at whatever argument the engineers have dissolved into, before turning his attention to the chiming of the turbo. 

Out emerge more engineers with a replacement blade for the saw. Whatever monstrosity is down the chute has bones that have cracked and splintered three heavy duty blades already. 

“You can pinpoint the exact moment the stench hits them,” Thorn chuckles. 

Sure enough, each man’s cheerful grin vanishes less than a footstep out, replaced by looks of revulsion. 

“What died?”

Thorn shrugs. “That has yet to be determined.”

One of the men rolls his eyes. “I knew Taz laughing meant no good.”

The other engineer huffs. “This is the fresher incident all over again.”

The troopers already around the chute turn and glare. 

“We don’t talk about that!”

Sheepishly, the new arrivals set the blades down and quickly put on their helmets. For all the good it’ll do them. 

After another standard hour, and several more busted blades, the unfortunate engineer who’d been lowered into the chute to dismantle the blockage crawls out. 

He’s covered in muck, something jelly textured and green tinged, flecks of grayish blood and bone fragments, panting and retching.

One of his buddies helps him to his feet, shaking his head. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, vod, but you can’t come to 79’s with us for the foreseeable future.”

He gets a disgruntled huff in response.

As he stumbles away, leaving a trail of filth in his wake, Fox and Thorn step up to watch as the remaining engineers pull the chunks that are too large to pass through back up and dump them on the floor. 

Whatever it was, it’s now an unidentifiable mess. It spills out on the rugs, globs spreading out and splashing up, ruining what are surely expensive rugs and low hanging wall decor. 

Fox can’t find it in himself to care much about any of it. 

Finally, the largest piece falls out with a thud, cracks open, mushy contents oozing out. 

Thorn prods it with his boot.

“I bet this is a delicacy on some mid rim planet.” His head tilts as he looks at Fox. “I’ll tell Stone to check the HoloNet.”

Shaking his head, Fox points at the carcass. “Get it cleaned up. The senators are going to throw a fit about being locked out of their offices.”

Someone grumbles ‘lucky bastards’ in response.

Ignoring the commentary that springs up as they begin to scoop up the mess, deposit it in red biohazard bags, Fox turns to the droids. 

“Get to it.”

They whirl to life, scooting around the busy troopers, begin to work on the chute, impervious to the awful smell still wafting out.

Fox watches as Thorn comms Stone and begins trying to determine what their carcass might’ve been and one of the engineers picks up what had been a clawed appendage and uses it to poke his brother as another lifts the skull, makes the detached jaw move up and down, pitches his voice up.

“Oh Clip! I looove the cologne you’re wearing. What is it? You must tell me!”

A tooth falls from the lower jaw.

Clip glares at them through his visor for a moment, then reaches out and smacks them on the sides of their buckets. 

“Grow up.”

When they begin arguing, reminding him unnecessarily that they’re ten, Fox walks away. 

He decides to sweep the halls, make sure no idiot aides passed out and were forgotten in the confusion.

Following the curve of the hall, he does quick scans, finds nothing more than a few plants and an aquarium. As the plants have watering systems and the fish has an automated feeder, he doesn’t worry himself with their welfare. They’ll survive just fine for a few days until their senators are allowed back up.

He stops as he reaches one of the smaller offices on the floor. 

Pantora’s office. Senator Chuchi’s.

Frowning to himself, he reaches out, taps in the override on her door. She hadn’t been on the floor, thankfully, when the worst occurred. There might be something she needs inside. He won’t bother with any of the others, but as she’s been pleasant...he’ll check. 

Her office is close enough to the scene of the disaster that he’s certain it reeks, though he’s so desensitized he can’t tell. 

Stepping in, he looks around. 

It’s sparsely decorated, a couch, shelf, desk and chairs, and an ugly looking plant he supposes is from her home world. On the desk is a flimsi daily itinerary, handwritten notes in delicate, curly script, things he would’ve expected to be on her datapad. Still, he’s heard of people still enjoying the novelty of it.

Carefully, he stacks and folds them, gently places them in his belt. 

At the edge of the desk is a pair of holopics with smiling blue faces. 

Picking the larger one up, Fox frowns. 

It’s an older couple, white haired male with a thin beard and the female with silver white threads in her lavender bun. Senator Chuchi’s parents. 

She looks like her mother, he decides. Same shape to their faces, same hair, same eyes...but still distinctly different. Her nose matches her father’s though, as does her smile.

It’s unsettling, seeing the Senator’s disjointed features on other people, so he sets the holo down and carefully picks up the smaller frame. 

Senator Chichi is in this one, apparently at a body of water, though whether a lake or the ocean he can’t tell. At the very least he can’t focus enough to determine the location. 

She’s beaming out, hair pulled back in a loose twirl, flanked by a pair of girls he quickly identifies from memory of her file as her sister and cousin, wearing the least amount of clothing he’s ever seen on her.

Not that he’s been paying that much attention to her wardrobe, but...he’s sure he’d notice if she displayed that much skin.

It’s hardly scandalous. Some sort of female swim top and a long skirt, though it does have a slit in it running from her ankle to her hip, in matched red patterns. It’s simply...not something he’s ever likely to see her in while on Coruscant.

Something that feels distinctly like disappointment settles in his stomach at that realization.

“What have you got there?”

Fox nearly drops the holo.

Thorn is in the doorway, head tilted in confusion as he stares at Fox. 

“Holo,” Fox answers, a little too quickly, voice cracking.

Thorn crosses the room and Fox fights the urge to throw the holo in a drawer and seal it. It’s not something the men need to see.

It’s not something Fox needed to see.

He cranes his neck over Fox’s shoulder and chuckles. 

“Heh. You making a HUD recording of that?”

Fox snaps his head toward Thorn so fast the fronts of their buckets nearly knock together. 

“No. And neither are you.”

Thorn steps back and Fox can imagine the confused expression on his brother’s face behind his visor. 

“It was a joke.”

Shoulders still tense, Fox grinds his teeth. He knows it was.

“Sorry, vod. I’m just-the smell is giving me a migraine.”

He presses his hand to his head for effect. 

It’s a pathetic lie, and a poorly delivered one at that, but Thorn has the decency to pretend to believe it.

“You should head back to the barracks. I can handle it from here.”

“I’m-”

“You’ve been dealing with this for fifteen hours, longer than any of us.” He claps Fox on the shoulder. “Go hit the showers. You smell like a Gungan’s sweaty ball sack.”

Fox snorts. “I hope that’s theoretical knowledge.”

Thorn makes a disgusted noise. 

“If it were practical knowledge I’d turn myself in for reconditioning.”

Popping his neck, Fox chuckles. “We all would.”

-

A rank cloud hovers around Fox as he rides the turbolift to the senate landing platform. 

He’ll have to ask Thire what he used that finally scrubbed the funk of Orn Free Taa’s odiferous flowers from his skin and hair. His blacks, he’s decided, will simply have to go to the incinerator.

Stepping off, fresh air rushes at him and he sighs, grateful for some relief from the scent of rot even if only temporarily.

Skirting around the edge, away from the last of the departing senators, he’s halfway to the walkway leading to the barracks when he hears his name. 

“Commander Fox!”

Freezing, Fox groans as he spots Senator Chuchi half jogging toward him, one hand raised in greeting. 

He barely has time to hold up his hands in warning to keep her from hitting the wall of stink clinging to him. 

“Stay back, ma’am.”

She stops mid step, probably startled by his grave tone. 

“Is everything alright?” She asks, golden eyes wide in worry. 

“It’s fine, Senator, I just...don’t smell very good.”

Which is an understatement of the highest order. 

Her nose wrinkles and she takes a step forward. Fox steps back, nearly tripping over a mouse droid rolling past. 

Her lips part, question about to roll out, when her attendants come rushing over.

“Senator Chuchi!” The younger woman huffs, sweaty faced and out of breath. “We are going to be late!!”

The older woman wheezes, nodding.

The Senator grimaces, her cheeks tinging indigo, gestures to Fox. 

“I-” she frowns, mouth turning down in a pucker as she thinks, apparently struggling for a reason she’d rushed to him.

“I wanted to check on the Commander,” she finally explains, looks back at him and nods, mostly in reassurance to herself it seems. “I heard there was a body in the garbage compactor?”

Fox stares at her for a moment. She’d heard what?

“Oh!” The older woman perks up, breath back and attention on Fox. “Someone was killed? Well that’s a regular scandal! Just like on ‘Corellian General’!”

She steps forward, presumably thinking she’s about to be given a sordid tale, but gags before she can prod Fox for details.

“Young man, you smell like a Hutt’s crotch after a bender.”

Fox grimaces. Much like Thorn’s knowledge of gungan balls, he hopes her knowledge of Hutt crotches, if they even exist, is entirely theoretical.

Gritting his teeth, Fox nods. 

“I’m aware.” He directs himself at Senator Chuchi. “There was no body. It was a decomposing...something. Animal, we’re almost entirely sure. Your floor is being decontaminated due to the...aroma.”

The Senator leans forward, sniffing, then her face pulls back as her hand covers her nose and mouth.

The younger aide steps away, pulls her scarf over her nose and mouth, glares at Fox as though he’d purposely marinated in the stench of decay for over half a day. “That’s disgusting. Why don’t you shower?”

Senator Chuchi shoots her a look. 

“I believe that may be where he’s going, Lassa.”

Her aide, Lassa, glares. “Then I advise we let him. We still have a dinner to make.”

Senator Chuchi chews her lower lip, then concedes. 

“Of course.” A small smile forms on her lips. “I’m sorry if I’ve delayed you, Commander.”

Fox watches her go, trying not to let the intrusive image of her in her swim outfit crowd into his thoughts, when he remembers the flimsi in his belt. 

“Senator!” 

She stops and turns, watches for a moment as he jogs toward her before hurrying to meet him halfway, stopping just short of the perimeter of the smell.

He holds up the flimsi.

“I was doing a sweep and saw these on your desk. I thought you might need them.”

He doesn’t mention he hadn’t extended the same courtesy to any of the other senators. 

“I can set them on the ground and you can pick them up.”

She laughs, steps toward him too quickly for him to back away, catches his gloved hand in her tiny blue one. “You’ve dealt with that awful smell all day, I think I’ll survive a moment.”

“Well, the bucket does help some.”

Grimacing, she covers her mouth, pats his hand. 

“No small mercy, I assure you.” Her eyes begin to water. “May I offer you some Pantoran bathing oils? Many of the fishermen use them for the more pungent scents…”

She says something more, but Fox doesn’t register just what. The deep cut of her blouse and the stretch of blue skin it exposes on her chest fogs his mind momentarily.

“That-uh-that would be fine, ma’am,” he finally answers, when he realizes she’s stopped speaking and he’s been staring down her shirt.

If she noticed he wasn’t listening, or worse, that he’d devolved into a leering creep, she doesn’t make an issue of it, just smiles under her hand and nods. 

“Very good, I think that would be best.”

Unsure what he’s actually agreed to, Fox watches her bound off again before shaking the haze of unhelpful hormones from his head and turning back to the walkway.

-

Even after a very long, very hot shower, Fox is still given a wide berth.

“If you care for any of us, even a little, you’ll sleep outside the barracks,” Stone tells both him and Thorn.

Glaring, Thorn throws his smelly, rolled up blacks at Stone’s head before letting Thire show him where he’d camped out after the flower incident. 

Holding his towel in place, low around his hips, Fox just rolls his eyes.

“I’ll stay to my office.”

When a round of applause breaks out at that announcement, he threatens them all with extra PT. 

“If it gets us away from your new cologne, we’ll all gladly take it,” Stone laughs.

Turning, Fox ignores them as he walks to his office down the back hall, closing his door when they begin to muse on how bad the engineering barracks must smell.

He sighs as he looks around. Senator Chuchi’s office might’ve been one of the smallest on her floor, but it was sprawling compared to the storage closet he was given. Not that it mattered. It existed to give him a place to fill out forms, go over reports, and occasionally sleep, nothing more. 

Tossing his towel, he goes to the battered cabinet behind his desk, opens the lowest drawer and digs around. He’s sure he’s got a spare set of blacks hidden away somewhere…

He barely registers the click of the door, only notices the chunk of light growing as it opens. 

“Stone, so help me, if you’re coming in here to make another crack about ‘cologne’ I’ll-”

His stricture dies on his tongue as he turns and does not find Stone. 

Senator Chuchi is just inside his doorway, seemingly frozen in place, something gripped tight in her hand, eyes wide.

Reflexes he wasn’t aware he had kick in as he cups himself, half falls behind his tiny desk, knocking his wobbly chair over and into the wall.

“Senator!”

She startles, nearly drops whatever is in her hand as she jumps. 

“Fox!” She yelps, looking quickly at the ground, then closing her eyes tightly. “I-oh goddess!-I didn’t mean to-“

Her face is as deep a blue as Fox’s is red. 

“Senator,” Fox growls, his face and ears blazing. “shut. the. door.”

For a moment she frets, doesn’t seem to understand, then covers her eyes and fumbles with the door.

Praying no one heard the commotion, Fox stretches out from his spot behind the desk, trying to get his towel. 

He’s got his fingertip on it, nearly in his grip, when a blue hand picks it up and holds it out to him.

Looking up, he finds Senator Chuchi down on her knees, his towel in one hand, her other tightly clamped over her eyes.

Taking it, Fox wraps it around his hips as he stands, though he stays behind his desk. The damn thing is too short to trust moving more than that, at least in present company. 

“You should get up, ma’am.”

Because if anyone did hear and comes in, finds Fox in only a towel and her down on her knees….

There will be no stopping the gossip. No amount of innocent explanation will stop his filthy minded brothers.

Besides that, it makes him nervous. Too close to his first one on one encounter with a female. He doesn’t want her tangled in those memories.

Hand still on her eyes, she nods and pulls herself up with the edge of the desk.

Slowly, she lowers her hand, holds it out to Fox. There’s a small bottle gripped in it. 

“I was-I brought-this is the oils,” she finally tells him, expression pained. “I promised to bring them by tonight after my dinner, remember?”

Fox runs a hand over his face. So that’s what he’d missed. Damn his useless hormones. 

“Of course.”

Taking the bottle, he opens it and sniffs. It smells like her scarf, some exotic fruit.

Looking at her, though pointedly not at the deep cut neckline of her dress, he has enough problems at the moment, Fox sighs. 

“I have my towel on, ma’am. It’s safe to open your eyes.”

The blush of deep blue intensifies.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

He almost tells her he can’t possibly get more uncomfortable than he is now, but decides against it. It might be tempting fate.

“It’s fine, ma’am.”

Slowly, she squints open one eye, then the other. Fox thinks he sees her gaze flicker down, but then they’re both focused on some indefinite point behind his head and he decides it may have been a trick of the light. 

“Riyo.”

Fox frowns. 

She lets her eyes drop to his face, then down to her hands, clasped at her middle.

“We’re alone, you can call me Riyo.”

Despite the situation, a smile twitches at the edges of Fox’s lips.

He supposes formality is a bit ridiculous when she’s seen his deece and poppers.

“Riyo,” he starts, frown overtaking the ghost of a smile as he realizes fully that she’s in his office, in the barracks, and that fact demands clarification. “How did you find my office? How did you get in the barracks?”

Fidgeting, she toys with the fringe on the hem of her blouse. 

“I had dinner with Senator Amidala, and I mentioned your predicament...her aides told me how to find the back entrance and the code to the barracks and where your office probably was. Evidently, this area used to be a recreational room for senate aides before being converted.” Her eyes flick up to him then back to her feet. “They suggested you might appreciate some discretion-that my presence in the barracks might overstimulate the men.”

Gripping the edge of his towel, Fox nods and makes a mental note to change access codes. Clearly his men have been too loose lipped around pretty and nosy aides.

“It would, and I do.”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she smiles at the floor and nods.

“Well...I should-I’ll be going now. Good luck, Fox.”

Eyes still on the floor, she turns on her heels...and steps into the closed door with a thud.

She turns, grimacing and rubbing her forehead, an unnatural little laugh bubbling up as she glances around. 

“I guess-I should open the door.” She quickly opens it and ducks out, so flustered she leaves it hanging open.

Setting the bottle down, Fox hitches his towel higher and goes to shut it.

Sticking his head out, he squints in the direction she vanished, finding nothing but an empty stretch of hall.

He sighs, then flinches when he hears a sputter of laughter.

Slowly turning his head the opposite direction, he finds Thorn, back against the wall, hand over his mouth, stifling his stupid, stupid laugh.

“Thire gave me some of the industrial soap he used for the flower smell, but I guess you don’t need it.” His grin widens. “The ‘funk’ seems to be working in your favor.”

“Shut up,” Fox growls, the heat that had finally receded races back up his neck to his face. 

“She wasn’t in there very long, and I didn’t hear anything-”

“Shut up.”

“-and from the holos I’ve seen on the matter that may mean you need to work on your performance-”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“-but that may just be a species variation. Maybe Pantorans have very quick and silent org-”

Fox roughly covers Thorn’s mouth with his hand and glares. 

“So help me-she brought some oils to help with the smell!” He snaps. “I was considering sharing with you, but now I’ve thought better of it.”

Thorn shakes with laughter.

Shoving him, Fox jabs a finger in his face, but can’t think of anything more to say.

“A senator, Fox? You've got the ambition of Orn Free Taa.”

Fire dampening, Fox sighs, lets his finger fall from Thorn’s face. 

“It was nothing.”

Thorn’s grin fades a bit. 

“I know.” His expression softens. “It’s only a joke.”

Nodding, Fox runs his hand over his face. He knows. 

“You’ll keep this between us?” 

Because their brothers are the biggest gossips in the galaxy. It’ll be all over the HoloNet before morning if there’s even a whisper between them. 

Thorn nods, no hint of insincerity. 

“Much as I’d love to torment you, I don’t want to ruin the reputation of one of the nicer senators in this garbage heap.”

Fox snorts. Whatever keeps his big mouth shut he supposes. 

“Now, about this oil,” Thorn begins, edging into the office. “Did she give you a massage with it or…”

Fox groans. Of course. He may not say anything to their brothers, but needling Fox in private isn’t off the table it seems. 

“Shut up.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.
> 
> AN: Very short Riyo pov chapter, but I am working on the next Fox pov chapter, so feeling accomplished. My hope is to get it finished before work. We’ll see how well that works out.

Riyo presses her palm to her forehead, takes a deep breath, tries to steady her nerves.

Had she really just walked in on Fox naked? Why was he naked?

Because he was in his personal quarters, that’s why. She’d invaded his privacy. While she didn’t regularly lounge in her quarters nude, it was his choice how he spent his very limited free time.

She groans. He must hate her. She’d barged in and just...stared. She’s no better than people she’s heard in passing, treating them like objects. Beautifully engineered objects.

Rubbing her eyes, she tries to force the image of him, standing with a barely adequate towel, from them. It seems permanently burned behind her eyelids though. She’ll likely die with Fox’s perfect nakedness beautifully haunting her last coherent moment. 

Her comm chirps, startling her so badly she nearly drops it.

“Senator? Are you done?”

Taking another breath, she fishes it from her skirt and lifts it to her mouth. 

“Yes, Lassa. I’ll be up shortly.”

Running a hand over her hair, she heads up the narrow steps. 

“She’s taking too long,” she hears Lassa complain as she reaches the top, pushes the door open. “That creep clone is probably-”

“I’m here,” Riyo announces, loath to hear whatever awful thing her attendant has to say about Commander Fox. 

Lassa glares. “Finally.”

She knocks on the window of the transport, startling the driver and security guards.

“Turn that damn holodrama off. We’re ready.”

Grumbling, they turn off the holo and tuck the datapad under the front seat, start the engine.

Riyo crawls in the back, grateful for the dark, her cheeks still warm.

Lassa is still mumbling darkly under her breath, her irritation still bubbling at the surface at having stopped by the barracks. 

“They’re clones, Senator, they don’t care if they smell.”

Shooting her a dirty look, Riyo had ordered the driver back to the Senate. She’d made a promise, and she planned on keeping it.

Obviously, she shouldn’t have, but that wasn’t something she could change. 

Gettsi hums as she settles in beside Riyo, pulls a roll from her pocket and nibbles on it. She pulls off a chunk and offers it to Riyo, freezing as light cuts in through the window. 

“Senator! Did you hit your head?”

Hand jumping up, Riyo covers the scuff on her forehead. It wasn’t hard enough to bruise, but clearly it was still visible. 

Reaching up, Gettsi turns on the overhead light, gasps and presses her hand to her chest dramatically as she gets a good look at Riyo. 

“And you look feverish! Goddess and moon! What happened to you?”

Lassa’s eyes narrow. “What did that thing do to you?”

Riyo glares at her. It’s moments like this she envies Senator Amidala getting to choose her own aides. If Riyo had her say, she’d have her sister and cousin at her side. Not the daughter of a high ranking member of the old guard and the widowed sister-in-law of a council member. Political appointments may be falling out of fashion on many planets, but not Pantora. 

“Commander Fox isn’t a ‘thing’, and he didn’t do anything.”

“Then explain your head.”

Lassa keeps her steely eyes on Riyo, waiting, daring her to lie. 

“I-I hit it on the door.” Which is the truth. 

“Hit the door? Or were hit with the door?”

“I walked into it!”

Gettsi leans in, inspecting the fading injury. 

“Why would you walk into a door?”

Years of political education, learning to argue and keep her cool had not prepared her for this. This isn’t political maneuvering, not even close. 

“I just...wasn’t paying attention.”

“They we’re doing something vile when you walked in, weren’t they?” Lassa asks, sitting back and crossing her arms, not waiting for confirmation. “I knew it. The Quarrens said they have regular orgies down there.”

Riyo huffs. The Quarren are ones to talk. “They’re a bunch of liars and you know it.”

Gettsi looks beside herself, leans in eagerly, certain she’s about to hear a sordid tale of group sex. 

“Well what were they doing then? Were there prostitutes? They’re fit young men, had to have been quite the sight.”

Pressing her fingers to her temples, Riyo grimaces. She can either tell them the truth or get needled for the rest of her term for the details. Lassa’s imagination will probably build up such a scandal she’ll bodily keep Riyo from ever seeing Fox again. 

Despite recent events, Riyo feels a swooping sense of disappointment at that thought. 

It may be wholly inappropriate, and she can’t quite tell his feelings on the matter, but she has the tiniest of crushes on him. 

The image of him in his towel, still trying to speak civilly with her, being kind to her after she busted his nose, then his look of relief when she’d defended him on the elevator when he’d had that box of condoms, all spring to mind. Outside of a few of her fellow senators, he’s been the only person on Coruscant to treat her like a real person. Riyo feels the heat creep up her neck again, settle on her cheeks.

Maybe it’s more than a little crush.

“There was no orgy.” She silences Gettsi with a look before her gaze drops to her hands and she takes a breath. “I-I walked in on Commander Fox...post shower. That’s all.”

A minute passes, both women rolling the explanation over in their minds, before Gettsi gasps. 

“He was-you saw him nude!”

Lassa’s mouth drops open as she looks at Riyo, probably hoping for a denial. She makes a horrified noise when she gets no such thing. 

“I warned you against going down there! I warned you!”

Riyo sighs. 

“I know, Lassa.”

Guiltily, even had she known what would occur, she’d still have gone down to Fox’s office. 

She’s an awful person. 

“You saw everything?” Gettsi asks, looking entirely too interested. “All the bits and pieces?”

Riyo buries her face in her hands, muffling her voice. “Yes.”

“Ooh.” Gettsi leans in. “How was it?”

Perfection, Riyo thinks miserably. Sculpted, tan, taught perfection. She could clean laundry on his stomach.

“Gettsi!” Lassa snaps. “You foul old rancor! Why would you ask that? Don’t traumatize her! Seeing it was bad enough, I’m sure!”

“I’m not traumatized,” Riyo quietly tells her, ashamed but certain she should confess it. “Poor Commander Fox probably is though.”

She huffs. “He’s a clone. Probably didn’t even notice.”

“He noticed,” Riyo grinds out. “He was positively mortified. It was awful.”

And she’d just stood there, like a gawking youngling. No consideration whatsoever. 

Waving off her concern, Lassa pats her hand. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Senator. They don’t feel shame.”

Glaring, Riyo turns her back to Lassa, crosses her arms.

“They most certainly do.” 

She grinds her teeth, fuming at the nerve Lassa has to refuse to acknowledge men being sent out without choice to protect her and her family as sentient. 

“I embarrassed him. It couldn’t have been more obvious.”

She can see Lassa make a face in the reflection in the window. Her eyes flick upward and a patronizing smile curls on her lips, but she doesn’t say another word. One of her very few good points, she knows not to drag on an argument once it’s clear Riyo has made up her mind. 

Reaching out, she turns off the light, and they finish the ride in silence. 

-

“I’ll just hold up a fruit and you-you can just nod if it was larger or shake your head if it was smaller and then I’ll know without you really telling me.”

Riyo simply stares at her for a moment before groaning. 

“I am not-I will not, Gettsi!” 

It’s a violation, and she’s already violated his privacy once, however unintentionally. She refuses to do it again. 

Sighing with a little more gusto than necessary, Gettsi looks wistfully at the jogan in her hand.

“My second husband was half human,” she finally says. “Loads more stamina than  
my Pantoran husbands. And I’ll bet your commander’s still got all those condoms from Senator Taa. Vibrating and flavored! Child, the two of you could have quite the tryst! You’d be walking funny for a good long while!”

Riyo grimaces. What is wrong with her aide? Does she honestly think this is appropriate?

“Gettsi, I really don’t-I don’t think we should discuss this.”

Huffing, Gettsi tosses the fruit back in the bowl. 

“You’re as prudish as Lassa,” she grumbles. “I tell you, you should jump that man’s bones while you’ve still got working joints, splaying hips are a gift.”

While Riyo is desperately trying not to pondering the horrifying image of Gettsi jumping anyone’s bones, her attendant begins reminiscing.

“Oh when I was younger, I went to Malastare, and there was this darling human man. We ended up in the back of his speeder, going at it like a pair of nuna.”

Recoiling, Riyo covers her mouth, wishing for the image of Fox in his towel back. It may make her a pervert, but anything is better than the appalling thought of Gettsi sowing her wild oats.

Shaking her head, Gettsi pats Riyo’s hand. 

“Just-you can just nod. Were the Kaminoans generous?”

Refusing to even acknowledge the question, Riyo picks up her datapad and mumbles a good evening, hurrying to her room.

When her next term comes around, she’s demanding her pick of attendants.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.
> 
> AN: I have aspirations of fluff, but I just missed it here I think. Maybe next time? For now though, hope y’all enjoy.

“We thought we were helping.”

Fox rolls his eyes under his bucket, tries not to move too much.

Having Lorrdians around is worse than Jedi, he’s certain. Jedi only sense feelings, and from what he’s learned, it’s fallible. He’s yet to see Senator Amidala’s annoying aides read anyone’s body language wrong.

“She was just going to walk into the barracks.”

“Yeah, you think those boys go berserk when we sneak food down.” Saché chuckles, her eyes tracking Senator Kaste’s aides, clumped together and shuffling down the hall. “Pretty girl showing up with a bottle of oil? Jek’s head might’ve exploded.”

Fox sighs. She has a point. He hates that.

“Be that as it may,” Fox tells them, trying to keep his voice level, refusing to give them any inadvertent hints to his thoughts. “Giving out the passcodes is a security risk.”

Sabé smiles. “Which is why you’ve changed it.”

Fox stifles a huff. He hadn’t told them he’d done that yet. Kriffing kinetic communication.

“What happened?” Saché let’s her gaze drift from studying the midday crowd filtering through the side hall to settle on Fox as she tilts her head.“She catch you ‘servicing your blaster’?”

Under his bucket, Fox feels heat creep up his neck and onto his face. 

“No,” he half growls. 

And to think he’d been led to believe women were all sweet and pure before his assignment to Coruscant. What a load of Bantha shit.

“Well, clearly something happened. Since Stone said you banned prostitutes and strippers during the first month, and you don’t seem like one to break your own rules,” Saché reasons aloud, “I have no choice but to believe she caught you indulging in some trashy visual media.”

“Porn,” Sabé clarifies, reading his confusion easily.

Fox grinds his teeth. 

“I was not watching porn!” He snaps, a little too loudly if the scandalized looks a few human aides shoot him are any indication. 

He leans in, hoping they read his annoyance plainly. 

“I was not watching porn,” he hisses, quieter this time.

Sabé reaches out, squeezes his hand. 

“Fox, sweetness, we know. Sach is only teasing.” She shoots her sister a look. “We won’t give out anymore passcodes, alright?”

Fox’s eyes narrow. “What other back passcodes do you know?”

They exchange a look, and Fox doesn’t need to know kinetic communication to understand the meaning of it. He foresees new codes for every known back entrance. The amount of notifications he’s going to have to send out is nauseating.

It’ll slow down Orn Free Taa’s parade of illicit visitors, at least at the senate proper. There’s a bright side. 

“You two are a security nightmare,” he grumbles.

“We like to keep you on your perfectly engineered toes,” Saché tells him brightly.

Fox rolls his eyes. “Great.”

He really doesn’t need any help in that arena. There are more than enough idiots in the Senate, from top to bottom, looking to keep him busy. 

“If it makes you feel any better, we’re about to be sent off on assignment,” Sabé tells him. “They’ve finally found a suitably awful one to punish us with.”

Shifting his weight, Fox nods. It can’t come soon enough. However much he does like them, they make him anxious. A reprieve would be welcome. 

While they’ve been indispensable sources of information on civilians since Fox and the rest of the Coruscant Guard had arrived, being friendly and willing to field questions from the men, filling in gaps in practical knowledge when the intelligence enacted filters on their HolonNet access rendered its information less than helpful...they’re also enormous pains in the choobs.

He appreciates their efforts to give his men some sense of civilian life, that they genuinely care about their wellbeing and treat them as humans, but more often than not they seem to stir up trouble. Unintentionally, true, but that doesn’t change the amount of paperwork he has to fill out. 

Beside that, their use of kinetic communication is exhausting and unnerving.

Saché nods, slow grin forming on her lips. “Your concern for our wellbeing is touching, Commander.”

Fox scowls through his visor.

“Stop that,” he grumbles. He does like them. He’d just like them a little more if they couldn’t read his every move, conscious and unconscious thought. 

“Can’t,” she chirps. 

Sabé smiles softly, reading his mixed feelings on the matter. “Don’t worry yourself too much. We’re like mynocks. You won’t be rid of us so easily.”

Saché nods in agreement. “Naboo Intelligence would’ve offed us years ago if it were.”

She says something else, he thinks an offer to bring back souvenirs for him and the rest of the guard, but he doesn’t quite catch it.

He’s too distracted by a flash of blue in the corner of his HUD.

Senator Chuchi, Riyo, is exiting a conference room, listening intently to Senator Amidala at her right. 

Her hair is in a braid today, some golden ornamentation woven through it. She tucks a loose strand back in as she nods at whatever the other senator says, purple lips curved up in a slight smile. 

He’s just noticed her skirt, a silver white and gossamer thing that gaps are her waist just enough to make his insides do an inexplicable roll, when he realizes Saché has stopped babbling about plush nerfs and Hoth snow globes.

Attention snapping back to the very real threat that is two nosy Lorrdians, Fox grimaces. 

If they were normal girls, he’d say they were patiently waiting, but he knows better. They noticed his lapse in attention and had probably determined the cause. Damn. 

Saché sighs then flashes a wicked grin. 

“Well look at that, Sabs, Fox has a crush.”

Fox glares at her through his visor. He isn’t sure what that means, but it sounds filthy. And from his experience with her, it undoubtedly is.

“I do not.” 

Sabé smiles, catching that he’s not familiar with the term. “It just means you like someone. It’s not bad. It’s cute.”

He stares at her. Cute? He knows the word. He’s heard it applied to shoes, outfits, small, ugly pets, and even uglier younglings, but he’s not sure how it applies to him or the probably dirty term. 

“You’ve got a crush on Senator Chuchi.”

Frowning, Fox tries to make reason of their nonsense. He needs clarification.

“How is it different than liking Senator Amidala?” He crosses his arms over his chest, tilts his head, said Senator and Riyo still in his periphery. “Or, when you aren’t being obnoxious, the two of you?”

Saché lights up. 

“It means you like her in a sexua-”

“Romantic,” Sabé cuts her sister off, shooting a stern look in her direction. “You like her romantically.”

“Romantic?”

All Fox knows of Romance is what he’s caught on poorly acted holodramas. Flowers and candy and banal exchanges of sugar coated declarations of love. 

The Kaminoans have no concept of romantic entanglements. It’s a foreign idea to them, leaving the clones with very little foundation for it. 

“Or you’re just horny for her,” Saché quickly adds, earning an exasperated sigh from her sister.

Fox scowls. He’s perfectly familiar with that term. He’d quickly become acquainted with it in the first few weeks of being on Coruscant, when his men had inadvertently brought escorts and several strippers back to the barracks during their first taste of leave. 

The Kaminoans have only a vague and detached understanding of sexual urges. They’re distractions, an unfortunate affliction of humanity to be overcome. Where the galaxy at large seemed to have decided quickly the clones were sex obsessed beasts, the developers of their flash modules on civilian relations had gone the opposite route. As far as they were concerned, the clones may as well not have penises or the ability to form even the most rudimentary connection. Or, more likely, they’d hoped by not discussing it, they could will it out of existence. 

It had caused Fox endless headaches during the early days. Miscommunication and misunderstandings had run rampant, mostly innocent, at least on the trooper side.

Contrary to the rumors, he’d not ‘banned’ either strippers or prostitutes. He hadn’t needed to. They’d simply stopped following the troops back to the barracks when they realized they didn’t have a credit to their nonexistent names. 

Senators Amidala and Organa had been arguing for a stipend for each trooper, a stepping stone to pay and benefits, but hadn’t made much headway. He doubts they know the hedonistic plans many of the men have for any credits they may earn.

79’s was a small mercy. Cato Family Media Galactic had opened its doors to the Grand Army of the Republic, with free food and drinks, dance floor and boloball court, shortly after the HoloNet began running stories on how troopers were being kicked out of strip clubs and bars across Coruscant. Though Fox has his suspicions they’d not done so out of the goodness of their hearts, but out of hope that the loose lips of inebriated and hormonal men would pass along good gossip for their tabloid. It’s a security nightmare.

Still, no harm has come from it, so Fox keeps his thoughts to himself. The men deserve a place to unwind, outside the barracks. 

Without thinking, Fox glances down to his codpiece. Nothing seems out of place. 

“I’m not.”

His bucket must’ve moved despite his efforts to be still, because the girls exchange a look, something between exasperated and amused. 

“Boys.” Saché laughs. “Even manufactured and above average intelligence and they still think their penis is the only anatomy they have that gives them away.”

Sabé snorts.

He starts to defend himself, ask just what they mean, but he’s interrupted by a warm greeting. 

“Commander Fox!”

Senator Amidala beams at him. He’d been too engrossed in her aides’ nonsense to notice she and Riyo had snuck up behind him. 

“Are you being harassed?”

Before he can respond, Saché cuts in. 

“Are you kidding? Fox loves these little heart to hearts with Sabé and I.”

“Highlight of my day,” he grumbles, wishing he’d excused himself earlier. 

With Riyo so close by, he’s on the razor edge of disaster. There’s no telling what madness the sisters might stir up if they sense anything amiss.

Not that anything is.

Senator Amidala laughs. “Clearly.”

Beside her, cheeks tinged indigo, Riyo is determinedly keeping her gaze forward. 

She must be familiar with Naboo’s nuisance aides, and is working as hard to keep them from picking up on anything as Fox is.

Not that there’s anything to pick up on.

It had been a well intentioned, innocent mistake. Nothing more. It’s probably not even an act, she’s probably already scrubbed the image of his nakedness from her mind.

He wishes he could do the same with the memory or her in her swimming attire…

“Senator Chuchi’s oils helped, it seems,” Senator Amidala says, sniffing slightly and smiling, snapping him from the unfortunately pleasant memory.

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

“I guess the back entrance was a good idea then? Kept them men from getting over exposed?”

Fox nearly chokes. The men? Yes. His gett’se? No.

Riyo coughs and Senator Amidala gives her a concerned look. 

“Riyo? Are you okay?” 

“Fine,” she chokes out, forcing a smile. “Just-just-I need-I think I need something to drink.”

Out the corner of his eye, Fox sees Sabé’s eyebrow raise. Apparently not buying the excuse. 

Senator Amidala has the decency not to press the matter, just nods and smiles. 

“Of course. It’s been a long morning. Why don’t you gather your aides and meet us in my office? We can discuss the bill over brunch.”

Nodding, Riyo rushes off, toward where her two aides are seated across the hall, watching the group through the crowd. 

Giving Fox a small nod, Senator Amidala smiles. 

“Have a good afternoon, Commander.”

“You as well, Senator.”

She breezes off, Sabé at her elbow, Saché trailing behind them. 

“Chuchi’s a worse liar than you boys,” Saché snickers as she brushes past him. 

Ignoring her, Fox pretends to adjust his kama as he watches Riyo on his HUD. 

The blush is fading from her cheeks, though he can still spot the traces of it on her chest…

His comm goes off.

“Commander?”

Shaking away the inappropriate leering, he answers. 

“Fox here. Go ahead.”

“We’re going to need you in surveillance. We think we caught the Gamorreans. Found video of them stuffing something down that garbage chute.”

Finally. Maybe now they can get them booted from the Senate permanently.

He waits to respond, allows himself a moment to watch Riyo vanish out the hall, her gossamer skirt whipping out of sight.

“Be there in a moment.”

-

“Cute?” 

Fox nods, wipes sweat from his forehead and rubs it on a bit of his exposed blacks.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Sabé and Saché, but they have a propensity to use language he’s found isn’t to be used in polite society. Or with senators. 

‘Cute’ seems harmless, but it may have alternative meanings. 

“Huh. I’ll look into it, but this ‘crush’ doesn't seem lewd.” Thorn continues to look down at his datapad. “Just a juvenile term for infatuation.”

Rolling his eyes, Fox grunts an acknowledgement. It still sounds vulgar to his ears. Conjures up images of...things being pushed together. 

He shakes his head to dislodge the thought. Just because he hadn’t had a physical reaction earlier didn’t mean it wasn’t still a possibility if he wasn’t careful. 

Much as it annoys him, infatuation seems a decent description of his thoughts on Senator Chuchi. Whether that implies a romantic context or a...sexual one, he hasn’t quite determined. 

“So...you’re infatuated with Senator Chuchi?”

“No,” Fox snaps, glaring over at Thorn. He might be considering the possibility, but he’s not quite sure he’s ready to examine it out loud. Especially not with any of his brothers.

Thorn grins. “You could pick worse. Remember that Cerean Lem was flirting with at 79’s? At least your Senator has a normal sized head.”

Ignoring him, Fox continues his trek through the lower level, past return pipes and exhaust ports, his destination in view.

Central laundry. 

All the clone blacks, fatigues, and uniforms are funneled to the lowest level of the senate, central laundry in the basement. It’s his only option to get Riyo’s scarf cleaned.

Warm air, thick with the scent of the cheapest detergent the galaxy has to offer, wafts toward them as they round the corner, step into the brightly lit floor of the laundry.

There are dozens of droids, gears whirling, as they process not only clone laundry, but tapestries and tablecloths, fancy embroidered napkins, and heavy curtains. They don’t notice Fox and Thorn at first.

“Can we help you?”

The droid rolls up on a single wheel, purple eyes glowing as it leans toward Fox and Thorn. 

Jaw set, Fox nods and pulls the scarf from his belt. “I need this laundered.”

Abruptly, a claw like hand shoots out, clicks in anticipation. “Let us see the garment.”

Fox hesitates, keeps the scarf close for a moment longer, unsure if he trusts the clumsy claws with such a delicate item. 

“I don’t want you to rip it,” he warns.

Despite having no lungs, the droid sighs. “We were specifically designed to care for, clean, and repair all manner of textiles. It is more likely to be damaged by your untrained hands than ours.”

It clamps down on the scarf’s edge, gently but firmly tugs it from Fox’s grasp.

“Let go or you will rip it,” the droid finally warns him.

Reluctantly, Fox releases it, watching it flutter away with a lurch rolling in his stomach. 

“This is shimmer silk, a female article,” it announces, after a moment of examination. It looks backup at Fox, purple eyes darting between him and Thorn. “How did a clone come into possession of such an item?”

“It was given to me,” he explains, biting back annoyance at having to do so to a droid. “I was injured and someone gave it to me to stop the bleeding.”

The droid makes a noise, looks back at the scarf, moving it until the blood is visible.

“Ah, yes, some species do bite during sexual encounters.”

Fox feels heat creep up his face as he processes what the droid said and Thorn makes an unnatural noise.

“They do what now?” He asks, leaning in, eyes wide, very concerned.

“Bite,” it answers slowly. It turns its empty gaze back to Fox. “If your sexual partner injured your external male reproductive organ, I must suggest you seek medical attention. The bites of many species are, in fact, poisonous. And even if they aren’t, the mouths of organics are filthy, and can cause secondary infections. Even the lower dentation of some species can harm the delicate human male sexual organ.”

Fox glares. 

“It wasn’t a bite,” he growls before Thorn can formulate a coherent thought about the word ‘lower dentation’. “I was hit. In the nose.”

It nods. “Ritualistic battle is common in some species prior to intercourse. Was your partner, perhaps, Devaronian?”

“They fight before sex?” Thorn asks, entirely too engrossed in the information. 

Fox rolls his eyes. Is that really important right now?

“She was not Devaronian,” he snaps. “She was Pantoran and we weren’t-”

“Ah, Pantoran,” the droid cuts him off, nodding. “The hypermobility of their joints has resulted in several wardrobe malfunctions. We can see how that may result in injury during intercourse.”

Fox feels the question leave his mouth before he can think better of it. 

“Hypermobility?”

The droid’s head tilts. 

“Yes. We believe the colloquial human term for this is ‘bendy’ or ‘flexible’.”

Thorn snorts, claps him on the back. 

“Congratulations.”

Shoving Thorn off, Fox glares at him for a moment before looking back to the droid, a sharp word at the end of his tongue.

“A word of warning,” the droid continues, holding up its clawed hand to silence both men. “Pantoran post-coital bodily fluids, while not corrosive to your external genitalia, do cause considerable harm to dark fabrics.”

It shudders. 

“Post-coital fluids of many species do worse. We have seen things.”

Fox opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He’s not really certain what to say to that. 

Even Thorn seems mercifully stunned silent. 

Finally, Fox coughs. 

“Uh, well,” he jabs his finger at the scarf, sets his jaw. “Can you get the blood out or not?”

It nods. “Of course. A simple matter. We can have it back to you by next evening.”

“Very good,” Fox grunts, eager to get away. 

He doesn’t want anymore information on sexual bodily fluids from the kriffing laundry droid. 

Or worse, for Thorn to ask about ‘joint hypermobility’. Fox is trying to shake the thought out of his head, he doesn’t need his annoying brother repeating it until his ears bleed. 

Turning sharply on his heels, Fox starts to stride away, pausing when he notices Thorn isn’t at his side. 

“Now, which species have corrosive fluids?” He asks the droid, his datapad unclipped from his hip, stylus at the ready. 

“Thorn!”

Thorn has the audacity to look aftonted. 

“This is very vital information. There are men’s external genitalia at risk!”

Grinding his teeth, Fox stomps back over and grabs Thorn by the ear. 

If they put their dicks in an unknown species without proper research, they deserve to lose them. 

Dragging a protesting Thorn, Fox curses under his breath as they wind through the basement level. 

“Stop whining,” he finally snaps, wheeling around face to face with a giddily grinning Thorn. 

“I am not ‘whining’,” Thorn tells him, lips still stretched in a grin. “I’m advocating for the health and safety of my brothers.”

He jerks his thumb in the direction they’d come from, toward the laundry droids. 

“That’s valuable intel, vod. Those useless modules didn’t mention a word about penis destroying body fluids, sex battles, or biting.”

Taking a deep breath, Fox pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“I’ve seen you flirt. You are no more at risk of injury by sexual contact than you are of sprouting lekku.”

Thorn’s grin vanishes. 

“First of all, I’m hurt. Second of all, I am an excellent flirter. Saché assured me.”

Fox shakes his head. He wouldn’t call Saché a liar, but he knows perfectly well she and Sabé are a little too kind in their appraisals of his brothers interactions with civvies. He may not have much practical experience, but he wasn’t decanted yesterday. 

“Shut up.”

Thorn chuckles as he jogs to catch up with Fox, barely catching the turbo lift doors, stumbling in. 

They ride up, back to the landing area, and exit, unclipping their buckets from their belts. 

“Well, that was, at least, illuminating,” Thorn finally says, clearly biting back laughter. 

Fox turns to him, teeth bared. 

“I said shu-”

“Senator Chuchi!”

Fox spins on his heels. 

Standing behind him, braid windswept and cheeks dark, is Riyo. 

“Commander Fox,” she greets him, a pained smile pinned in place as she nods. “Commander Thorn.”

“Ma’am,” Thorn nods back, lips twitching. 

Looking a shade ill, she looks back at Fox. 

“Could you spare me a moment, Commander?”

He’d rather not. His face is already feeling warm and his ears are on fire. If he’s alone in her presence, spontaneous combustion may be a real possibility. 

As he’s still formulating a suitable excuse, Thorn answers on his behalf. 

“Of course ma’am. I was just about to go start my perimeter check with the lads. He’s all yours.”

He claps Fox on the back, leans in. 

“Mind your blacks, vod.”

Fox bites his tongue, gives Thorn a look that plainly tells him if there weren’t a lady present, he’d make him sorry he was ever engineered. 

With a wink, Thorn slams his bucket on and saunters off. The bastard. 

Certain she’s going to hear his heart hammering irregularly against his armor, he sets his features, turns back to her, nods. 

At least earlier there’d been others to diffuse the tension, and he’d had his bucket safely on. Now his flush is blazing brighter than a supernova and there’s no way to avoid the nexu in the room.

“I,” she starts, pauses, then takes a breath, “I just-I wanted to apologize. I didn’t do it properly last evening. I shouldn’t have barged in. It was thoughtless, and I wanted you to know I’m sincerely sorry for any discomfort I caused you.”

She grimaces, looks absolutely miserable, so Fox forces his features to be less irritable. 

“Apology accepted, ma’am.”

Her lip picker and she shakes her head. 

“Please don’t say that just to make me feel like less of a deviant.”

Expression easing into something nearing natural, Fox shakes his head. 

“I’m not. That’s the finest apology I've ever received.”

He neglects to tell her it’s the only apology he’s ever received, at least from someone who didn’t share his face. 

A little of the anxiety eases from her features and she smiles softly. 

“I appreciate your kindness, but that was a dreadful apology.”

“It was sincere though.”

And he thinks that’s all that matters. 

She nods. “It was.”

Tucking a purple strand of hair behind her ear, she smiles up at him. 

“You’ll be avoiding me from now on, I’m afraid.”

He shakes his head. “Not likely.”

Laughing, she tugs at the hem of her top, covering the sliver of blue skin on her waist Fox hadn’t realized he’d noticed. 

“I suppose not. You really can’t until we’re even.”

Fox stares at her, his thoughts grinding to a halt. 

She freezes, apparently realizing the implications of her words. 

“Goddess-I didn’t mean-I don’t mean to say seeing me nude-or imply you’d try to!” Panic radiates off her. “I'm sure there are other women you could see much easier-not that I-I don’t believe you to be some kind of libertine. Just that you’re quite….”

She buries her face in her hands, mutters something to herself too muffled to make out. Her fingers spread fractionally and she peeks out. 

“I meant, you know, embarrassing me. Not that I need any help, evidently.”

Fox raises his hand, planning to give her a comforting pat on the shoulder, as he’d do for any shiny that stumbled into a social minefield, but thinks better of it and let’s it fall uselessly to his side. 

“Not to worry,” he reassures her, trying not to let his eyes track her blush down the front of her top. 

Hands dropping from her face, she bites her lip. 

“You really are too kind with me.”

Sighing, Fox rakes his hand through his sweaty hair. It’s gotten too long. 

“You’re easy to be kind with.”

She chews her lower lip. 

“Even though I’ve beaten you up and violated your most intimate privacy?”

Fox rolls his eyes. “As long as neither of those things are made common knowledge.”

An odd look passes over her face, Thorn can’t quite place it, but she quickly replaces it with something stern and determined. 

“My lips are sealed.”

“Senator!”

Her aide, the younger one, is standing by her transport, foot tapping and expression undeniably sour. 

Riyo sighs. “I suppose I should go.”

Her smile softens. 

“Have a good evening, Fox.”

He hesitates, then nods. 

“You as well, Riyo.”

The blue blush that had faded darkens again as she turns and hurried off. 

He watches as her older aide, the dumpy woman with slivering hair, meets her and begins babbling, glancing in Fox’s direction. Whatever she says, Riyo shakes her head and presses her hand to her forehead before brushing past her. 

As the old woman begins tottering in Riyo’s wake, Fox shoves his bucket back on and turns to leave. 

Blinking, he brings up his rear view. 

The two aides appear to be bickering, much to Riyo's evident frustration. She’s got her delicate fingers pressed to her temples and her eyes closed.

Just as he’s stopped to adjust his kama, stall for a few more moments in the dimming sun, fresh air, and view, he gets an alert on his HUD. 

Fox, Valuable intel-Thorn

Against his better judgment, Fox tips his head, opens it. 

Immediately, he wishes he hadn’t. 

It’s not Thorn’s finest work, but considering he’d only had half a standard hour, Fox supposes he ought to be impressed. He isn’t, but he should be. 

There are articles on Pantoran joint hypermobility, clothing care, and a colorful chart clearly meant for adolescents detailing safe sex practices he recognizes as being the same as the one hung in the showers. There’s also a detailed diagram of generic humanoid female anatomy Fox could’ve lived without, along with a list of injuries that may be encountered from interspecies copulation. 

“Karking, filthy bastard,” Fox growls as he quickly closes the message. 

Marching off, he takes one last look toward Riyo’s transport, just in time to see her gossamer skirt and one blue leg disappear into the back, the door shutting her in. 

He shakes his head. 

Now isn’t the time to attempt to pinpoint and define his thoughts on Riyo Chuchi. He’s got a brother to pummel, after all. Whatever determination he may come too, though, he doubts he’ll label it a ‘crush’. 

It still sounds filthy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.
> 
> AN: Another short Riyo chapter. I’m off for a few days, so hopefully I can work on the next chapter, which will be a bit longer.

“Did you offer him a handy?”

Riyo stops and stares at Gettsi for a moment, processing what she’s asked, before groaning. Shaking her head, she presses her palm to forehead. Between Gettsi and her crude, if well intentioned suggestions, and Lassa and her very blatant rudeness, she may have to physically hold off a headache. 

“No! Of course not!”

Expression faltering, Gettsi’s eyes widen, cut from Riyo to where Fox is probably still walking away.

“Oral?”

Hurrying past her, Riyo pretends not to hear the question, though the heat on her face makes it abundantly clear she’s blushing furiously. A dead giveaway. 

“Nothing? Well that was a sorry excuse for an apology,” Gettsi grumbles, huffing and puffing to keep up with Riyo. “‘Sorry for oogling your cock’ would’ve sounded a lot more genuine with the promise of some actions behind it. Even an offer to show him a tit would’ve been nice.”

Riyo nearly laughs. She hadn’t offered to flash him, but Gettsi might be mollified to know she’d insinuated, however unintentionally, Fox could even the score by seeing her naked. She’d be pleased purple, no doubt. 

Gettsi wheezes a bit when they finally reach the transport.

“When I’d upset my fifth husband, I’d offer to blo-”

“Oh shut up, Gettsi!” Lassa snaps, eyes narrowed. “I cannot hear another vile story from your twisted youthful sexual escapades!”

Gettsi huffs. 

“I was hardly a spring nuna when I was with Lenard.” She glares across at Lassa. “And as far as twisted goes, you just wait, young lady, I’ve not yet begun to horrify you.”

“You are absolutely disgusting, a vulgar old bantha!”

“And you’re a charmless bit-”

“Ladies!” Riyo hisses, teeth clenched. “You may argue and insult one another all you like, but not on the platform with the entire senate as an audience!”

Both looking appropriately shamed, each mumble half hearted apologies before ducking in the back of the transport.

Taking one last breath, Riyo looks back to where Fox had been.

His helmet is back on, his back to her, so she decides against waving a hand in goodbye. 

He must be talking to someone. His shoulders bunch up and he shakes his head, so possibly the conversation isn’t going well. 

“Senator?” 

Shaking off her curiosity, Riyo adjusts her skirts and steps in, the door automatically closing behind her as she settles in the seat across from Lassa. 

She smoothes out her skirt before looking between them.

“I need to have a discussion with the two of you,” she begins. “I’m asking you not to speak of my...inadvertent...exposure.”

Per the bylaws that have been in place since Pantoran history began, and her higher social status, she could simply forbid them from speaking of it. That feels a bit heavy handed though, an abuse of her position. Much as they frustrate her, they’re fellow Pantorans, and she wants Lassa and Gettsi to at least be friendly with her, not cowed.

“Of course not,” Lassa quickly says, eyes rolling. “Why would we want to admit something like that?”

Gettsi shrugs, opens her mouth only to be cut off by Lassa glowering.

“Not a word!”

Muttering under her breath, Gettsi turns her head and stares out the back window, letting Riyo enjoy the rest of the trip in tense silence. 

-

Neither Lassa nor Gettsi say another word for the rest of the evening. It’s as pleasant a night as she’s spent on Coruscant.

Dinner is eaten in terse silence, then they all retire for the night without even the coolest of good nights. 

Riyo doesn’t go to bed, but sits up reviewing reports and charts for the committee on sustenance acquisitions and compensation. It’s tedious reading, but it gives her something to focus on. 

She’s half fallen asleep, cheek resting against her hand, elbow propped up on a pillow, when she hears the gentle tap of a knock on her door. 

Shaking awake, she brushes hair from her face before clearing her throat and scooting to the edge of the bed, placing the datapad aside. 

“Come in.”

At the sound of her voice, the lock up clicks and the door slides open softly, and Lassa steps in. 

Sitting a little straighter, Riyo frowns. “Is something the matter?”

Because Lassa is a stickler for propriety. Coming to her Senator’s private quarters after hours is socially unacceptable. 

Taking a breath, Lassa nods. “I wanted a word with you. Without Gettsi and her...input and vulgar suggestions.”

Riyo nods. That’s a fair request. 

“Of course.”

Sighing, Lassa straightens her housecoat, expression as grim as if she were about to announce the death of a beloved family member. 

“It’s regarding your infatuation with the clone, ma’am.”

Opening her mouth, Riyo starts to lie, tell her she is not infatuated and Lassa is encroaching on impertinence by even suggesting it, but doesn’t get the chance. 

“It’s not your fault,” Lassa quickly tells her, smile forming, dripping with pity. “With your parents’ history, you were bound to have a vein of impropriety running through you. You simply cannot help yourself having these...urges.”

Breath catching in her chest, Riyo fights to keep her expression neutral. 

Her name gave her away. She wasn’t a Papanoida or Cho, with their long storied ancestry, political clout, and endless funds. She was a Chuchi. Her father’s family were penniless farmers with no connections or glorious history. 

Of course Lassa would’ve heard about her parents' unconventional history. It was no secret, after all. Probably investigated it when she was assigned as aide, no hefty task. As well connected as she is, a few lunch dates with family friends and she’d know.

Still, the way it was treated, as some great scandal, seemed at odds with the very bland reality. A woman fell in love with someone of lower social standing, married him, and upset societal standards. 

It probably burned Lassa to her very core that a woman with an inferior bloodline running through her still outranked her by virtue of having a very well born mother. 

Much as she always tried to ignore the looks she received, the whispers of those with noble family histories, Riyo knew they were there. She’d always hoped her hard work and character would blot out any perceived issues. 

Now it seems, even as a senator with the Assembly's backing and an unblemished record, her mother’s willfulness and her father’s low birth are still shadowing her actions. 

“As such,” Lassa continues, a pitious smile still hanging on her lips, “I believe it’s in the best interest of Pantora for you to eliminate the distraction.”

For a moment Riyo stares at her aide. Surely she isn’t suggesting killing Fox? Not even Lassa is that cold hearted, is she?

“My suggestion is you...indulge your baser instincts, get it out of your system. Then you’ll have a clear head and be able to focus on your duties again.”

Riyo blinks, slowly processing what she’s hearing. 

Once the relief that her aide isn’t advocating murder washes from her system, Riyo feels heat rise up her face. 

“Are you-you think I should have sex with the Commander to ‘get it out of my system’?”

While it’s a much more appealing option than murder, it’s still ludicrous. 

“Have you lost your mind, Lassa?”

Lassa sighs.

“Senator, please,” she shakes her head. “Obviously this isn’t a perfect solution, by any means, but rather than have you distracted, it’s the-as long as you make sure it knows not to discuss your activities with anyone, it’s a workable solution.”

Too appalled for words, Riyo stares as Lassa carries on, oblivious.

“It was manufactured to follow orders, so it shouldn’t give you any grief about requiring prudence. Really, it’s a blessing it’s around. Given your familial predisposition to...sexual indiscretions-”

Finally, Riyo snaps out of her mortified stupor. 

“Lassa!” She snaps. “First and foremost, if you refer to either Commander Fox or any of the Coruscant Guard as ‘it’ one more time I will contact the Assembly and have you recalled as lacking in decorum. I’m sure Senator Amidala’s aides will be all too happy to provide written testament to that.”

Going pale, Lassa nods. 

“Now that we are clear on that point, let me assure you I am not distracted.” She points to datapad on her bedside table. “I have been quite occupied with reports and graphs from my committee. Everything I’ve read has been retained quite easily. My loins are not burning with unfulfilled desire. I’m not desperate to take a lover to cool my passions.”

Evening out her breathing, Riyo takes a step forward, narrows her eyes.

“The Commander is my friend and I care for his feelings. I have...feelings for him, but I’m not driven to distraction by them, and I have no intention of using him as some kind of-of sex toy! I would appreciate it if you would refrain from further interference in this manner.”

Wide eyed and pale, Lassa nods, mumbles a ‘yes, ma’am’ as she backs to the door.

Before she can reach back and open it, escape, it flies open, Gettsi stumbling in.

“I heard something about ‘sex toys’, are we going on an outing?”

When all she receives is blank stares in response, she frowns.

“I was just going to suggest a few places over in the Bothan Quarter.”

Lassa makes a strangled noise before rushing out, leaving a very baffled looking Gettsi in her wake.

Arching an eyebrow, Gettsi turns back to Riyo.

“What’s got her so fussed?”

Pressing her palm to her forehead, Riyo shrugs. 

“She probably doesn’t care much for Bothans.”

Gettsi huffs. “No sense of adventure, that one. She needs to branch out. Try another species.”

Trying to smile, Riyo nods, wills herself not to imagine Gettsi with a Bothan.

“That cute Nautolan aide was giving her a look the other day.” She grins. “They’re very generous lovers you know.”

It takes the last ounce of self-control Riyo has left not to groan. She really could do with less information on Gettsi’s sex life. 

“That’s-thank you, Gettsi, that’s...something.” She gestures to the door. “I’m going to bed, if you don’t mind.”

She stares at Riyo for a moment, studying her before smiling softly. Reaching out, Gettsi takes her hand and gives it a pat. 

“Have a few sweet dreams about that darling Commander of yours. Stuffy snobs don’t get to stand vigil on those.”

Relaxing, Riyo nods. “Thanks, Gettsi.”

Gettsi turns and heads to the door, and has stepped out, when she looks back. 

“And if you change your mind about the toys, I’ll be up. ‘Corellia General’ is having a review show, I’ve missed quite a bit with the transition to Corrie time.”

Not waiting for a response, Gettsi hurries off, humming the theme of her program as she vanishes down the hall.

Groaning, Riyo sets the lock on her door before flinging herself on her bed.

Her aides will be the death of her. If she doesn’t die of self inflicted embarrassment first, that is.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.

“Why is there a sarlacc pit diagram up?” Thire asks, frowning at the front of their barracks, now converted to a makeshift classroom.

Stone squints as he leans forward in his rickety seat to better see the crude looking flimsi poster. He falls back in his chair so hard that he almost tips backward, his face an interesting shade of crimson.

“That’s no sarlacc.”

Thorn and Thire actually get up and crawl over the empty row in front of them, go to the bulletin board and investigate, nearly kicking Fox in the nose as they do.

“Idiots,” he grumbles, rubbing his cheek where Thire’s foot had grazed it. 

He doesn’t need to get up close to the diagrams posted to know what it is. Considering why they’re there, it’s hardly worth wasting a guess. 

“Who?” He’d asked, when a pink cheeked shiny had all but barreled into his office during morning report the day before, rambling about an urgent visitor.

“Some doctor, sir. Very small, very loud, very angry.”

Fox had rolled his eyes. He wasn’t medical, whatever it was, it wasn’t his problem. 

“Send him to the infirmary.”

The trooper didn’t budge. 

“Tried that already, sir. She’s insistent she see you. Asked for you by name.”

That hadn’t improved Fox’s mood. They were already on the cusp of running behind. He still hadn’t determined who would be guarding Riyo, as her home guard were all down with the flu, someone had hidden something foul in the ceiling above Senator Clovis’ office, and the caf machine had malfunctioned. Dire straits they were in, indeed.

Grinding his teeth, Fox huffed as Thorn, Thire, and Stone waited warily for his response.

“Send her the kriff in,” he finally snapped, startling the shiny so badly he nearly tripped over his own boots. 

Fox had mentally noted he needed to give the kid an apology. It was hardly his fault the morning had stopped in the first of Corellia’s nine hells.

“Why is a doctor wanting to see you?” Stone asked.

“Hell if I know.” With the luck he’d had so far, probably to tell him the seppies we’re releasing a biological weapon specifically targeting clones. Considering why she’d actually come, he half wishes that had been the case. 

Not a moment had passed before a brassy voice seemed to pierce the walls of Fox’s office, then the door flew open. 

Small, loud, and angry was a succinct and incredibly accurate description of the woman that stomped into the office, terrified shiny at her heels. 

“I’m no bleedin’ politician, young man, I don’t need an introduction like some damn royal,” she grumbled, expression sour.

“It’s protocol, ma’am,” he mumbled in response. 

Her glare eased and she flashed an unsettling smile.

“Ah now, don’t get your feelings hurt. I’m just not one for pomp and circumstance.” She turned her unnerving smile on the commanders. “Now which of you is Commander Fox?”

Sighing, Fox owned up.

“That would be me, ma’am.” He tried to smile but knew it was more a grimace. “How can I help you?”

Blowing an unruly curl from her pale face, she’d rested a hand on her hip and lifted her chin. She jabbed a thumb at her chest. “I’m Doc Jane.”

She wasn’t Republic Medical, that was easy to see. Her uniform was rough, well worn and dirty, the color somewhere between grey and beige, and lacked Republic patches. Only the universal galactic medical symbol on her chest and right shoulder identified her as medical. Her planetary or galactic affiliation patch appeared to have been removed.

“I was asked to give a reproductive health talk to you boys.”

If she had opened her mouth and shrieked at them in some long dead Shyriiwook dialect, Fox wouldn’t have been more confused. 

“You-what?”

Shaking her head, she sighed. 

“Reproductive health, dearie. I’m to give you lot an informational so you don’t stick your dicks in something you ought not to.”

Fox pressed his fingers to his temples. Of course she was.

“No,” he finally told her, knowing it was a losing battle. “We don’t have time.”

“Don’t have time?” She echoed. “Don’t have time to save your peckers?”

“I have time,” Thorn quickly answered as Fox glared at him.

She nodded. 

“Good man.” She unclipped a datapad from her hip and began tapping. “I can come by after shift in the morning. Catch troopers before they switch shift, record the chat for the ones can’t be there. Good?”

Fox shook his head. “Ma’am, I don’t know who told you we needed a-this reproductive health talk, but we don’t.”

If there was ever something he didn’t need, it was more talk of sex around him. Jek was still pestering him about Orn Free Taa’s damned party condoms. If he weren’t saving the box that had been forced on him for strategic embarrassment, Fox would have thrown the whole thing at his and Rys’ heads ages ago. 

“Eh, we might,” Stone muttered as Thire nodded, both looking to Thorn. The bastard had obviously told them about that damned droid.

She’d taken his furious silence as acceptance and scheduled her visit for the next morning.

Fox had assigned Stone to Riyo, mostly to wipe the smug smile off Thorn’s face, and told him to interrogate Senator Amidala’s aides regarding the doctor’s visit. It had their obnoxious fingerprints all over it. 

“They denied knowing Doc Jane,” Stone reported that evening. “Then they said they were ‘horribly offended’ we’d accuse them of such a thing and then, ah, told me to...enjoy sex ed.”

Their denial meant nothing. They were well connected enough to have orchestrated the embarrassing affair without dirtying their hands. If they were troopers he’d have them scrubbing freshers for the indefinite future. 

As it was though, Naboo intelligence was sending them off planet for an undisclosed amount of time. Hopefully long enough for Fox to think of a suitable rebuke for the offense. 

For now, Fox sits stiffly in his unsteady chair, scowling at the displays along the front of the barracks and irritability sipping his caf. 

The second and third shifts are all sitting around in varying states of alertness, mugs of caf in hand and bleary eyed, while a few first shifters filter out, casting the diagrams fretful looks as they pass. 

“Write that species down,” he hears Thire tell Thorn as they walk back from the board. “That would tear a man up like a meat grinder!”

Thorn nods, his mouth a thin line. “I’m never having sex again.”

Stone snorts. “Again?”

Fox chokes on his caf. 

Glaring, Thorn opens his mouth to counter the jab, but gets cut short by Doc Jane blowing in like a Kaminoan storm, blood soaked into the hem of her pants and something unidentifiable but clearly organic stuck in her wild, dingy colored hair. 

She grins when she sees Thorn’s datapad. 

“That’s a nasty number, yeah? Latches onto your bits and twists them clean off.” She mimics the action and her grin widens. “I’d tell you keeping to humanoids’d keep you safe, but...that’d be a lie.”

Thorn looks positively terrified when she breezes off instead of elaborating.

“All right, dearies, choobies in the chairs and eyes on me if you value your dicks!”

Thire steps into the seat in front of Stone, reaching out and balancing himself with Stone’s head as he steps over, into his empty chair.

“Will you just sit on the front row!” Stone snaps when Thire’s foot misses the seat, slips down Stone’s shin, slamming into his foot. 

“Not with the tiny, scary woman,” Thire hisses back, kicking his other leg over the chair, hitting Fox in the jaw and nearly knocking his caf out of hand, before plopping into his seat.

Thorn, to Fox’s relief, settles into the seat directly in front of him. Datapad out, stylus ready, prepared to save the penises of the Grand Army from their own stupidity. 

“I’m Doc Jane, emergency med relief from Stewjon,” she announces. “And I’m here to educate you on how to keep your penises happy, healthy, whole, and attached to your bodies.”

“Attached?”

“Whole?”

“All of the above,” she confirms grimly, pointing to the board. “We’re starting with species. Which are mechanically compatible, which are venomous, and post-coital care if you get either adventurous, stupid, drunk, or some combination of the like and get frisky with one you ought not.”

Gesturing to the board, she directs their attention to a list. 

“Then we move on to sexually transmitted diseases.”

She snaps her fingers and a skinny woman Fox hadn’t noticed following after her, jumps, fumbles with a small device, then clicks it. 

The image of a mangled looking penis appears on the holoprojector beside Doc Jane and every man in the room winces, reflexively covering their crotch. 

“This is what happens when you don’t use protection, gentlemen.” She points at what looks like a painful sore. “Pustules and infection, rot your cock right off your body.”

Well, that’s one way of getting the men to use protection, Fox thinks, wincing as the image turns to give them a 360 view of the damage. 

“Is that the-er-the Corellian disease?” Jek asks, eyes locked on the decaying penis. 

“No, I heard it was the Coruscanti disease,” Rys says. 

“One and the same,” the assistant answers. 

Doc Jane nods. “They like to blame each other, but we really don’t know which horny bastard first spawned this crotch rotting beauty.”

She then gives them a detailed description of how, if they catch it, their penises will bloat, develop pustules, sores, and boils, then decay and crumble from the tip back as her assistant has the holo progress through each painful stage. 

“-and then there’s the ones that leave you impotent.” She waves a hand, either ignoring the wide eyed looks of horror or oblivious to them. “But I’m getting ahead of myself, yeah? Let’s talk about species that mate by ripping off your favorite appendage. And I’d take notes, dearies. I’ve checked, and this information isn’t in your HUD species database.”

Scrambling, men grab their helmets and furiously begin fumbling with the controls, start recording the presentation.

Fox shakes his head. This is going to be a long morning. 

-

“Now, these condoms have special lubricant that’ll keep the more corrosive bodily fluids from melting your peckers and are medically graded for all species,” Doc Jane tells them before shooting Thorn a look. “But it will not protect your blacks! I suggest you discard them completely before engaging in any intercourse. Sex can get messy, boys.”

“And dangerous,” Stone mutters, eyeing the little package he’s been handed. 

Doc Jane shouts to them to be careful, the lubricant makes the condoms particularly slippery, and they’re quite flimsy. 

“I’m told it’s like wearing nothing at all,” she adds with a shrug.

Fox shakes his head when Thire tries to hand him one. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Thire tells him, grinning. “Not even you are immune to the crotch rot.”

Thorn turns in his chair, a smugly superior expression on his face. 

“At least think of the poor girl, Fox. You don’t want to saddle her with your ill-tempered spawn.”

Damn Doc Jane. Was it necessary to tell them humans were genetically able to breed with a large variety of species? Does that have anything to do with fighting a war?

Why hadn’t he been assigned to the front? He’d rather be blasting tinnies than dealing with hormonal troopers and badly behaved senators. 

Stone snaps his fingers. 

“Excellent point.” He takes the condom and, after a scuffle, manages to get it into the pouch on Fox’s belt. “Your cranky shebs are enough for the entire Grand Army.”

Grinding his teeth, Fox stands and starts to leave when he hears one of the shiny medics examining the condom. 

“Ma’am, how did you get these? We were told they were back ordered.”

Doc Jane mumbles something in answer, waving her hand. “Not important.”

The medics exchange a look that plainly says they feel it is important, but are too wary to press the matter. 

Judging by her missing patches and battered uniform, Fox decides ‘not important’ means ‘illegal’. She seems the type to put practicality over legality. Still, if it keeps men out of the med bay, getting bacta injected into orifices Fox never wants to imagine being probed, he’ll tolerate it. 

“Now we didn’t have time today,” Doc Jane says as she shoots Fox a dirty look, as though it was his fault they had idiot senators to protect rather than listen to her mad ramblings about venereal diseases, “but I’ll be making a holorecording about what you ought not be stuffing up your asses. You think the vacuum of space sucks, it’s got nothing on your lower GI.”

“I think I’ll skip that,” Thire mutters as he trails after Fox and Stone, Thorn climbing over his chair to follow them. 

“Who gets your girlfriend today?” Thire asks as he continues to study the list of species the condom is rated for. 

Fox feels his eye twitch. 

Thorn hadn’t told Thire or Stone about the...incident, but they claimed to have picked up on what they called ‘blatant sexual tension’. 

Fox thinks it’s more likely Sabé or Saché passed along their suspicions.

Ignoring Thire, Fox marches out. They have a shift to start. 

They follow him, leaving behind the murmur of questions still being volleyed at the doctor and her mousey assistant. 

“Ah, I see you’ve assigned yourself to Senator Chuchi,” Stone chuckles as he puts on his bucket, pulls up the daily assignments. “Gonna put some of that newfound species specific data to use?”

Fox doesn’t respond, just shoves his own bucket on to smolder in solitude. 

The bastards had specifically asked about Pantorans during the meeting. 

“I’ve been told they’re very bendy,” Thorn had helpfully announced. “What injuries could be encountered during a sexual encounter with one?”

Fox had been certain his teeth would crack, his jaw was so tightly clenched. 

Doc Jane shrugged. 

“Pretty close to baseline human, those, so unless you get into some acrobatics, ought to be nothing more than you’d get with any human.” She’d made a face. “Your partner might get a dislocated hip or some such, though, if you get t’goin’ too hard at it.”

Thire made a low noise, and when Fox glared over at him, he had his hand clamped over his mouth, stifling a laugh. 

After a moment, she’d pulled up an unfortunately detailed holo-diagram of what must’ve been a Pantoran female. To Fox’s annoyance, it did some very interesting contortions as Doc Jane explained the body mechanics. 

“Taking notes?” Stone asked, lips quivering, barely holding back a grin. 

Fox mouthed a few choice in his direction. 

“What about their-ah-bodily fluids?” Thorn asked, looking entirely too serious. “I heard they can do some serious damage to our blacks-our body gloves, ma’am.”

She arched an eyebrow. 

“What’re you into? Some kinky half dressed things? Take your damned pants off!” She huffed. “But to answer your question, yes, the chemical makeup of Pantoran vaginal discharge-and semen-have been known to greatly discolor dark colored textiles.”

Fox hadn’t heard much she said after that, he’d been too busy plotting three officers' murders. 

“Don’t dislocate the Senator’s hip,” Stone tells him, mercifully over the closed channel. 

“And remember to remove you blacks before things get messy,” Thire adds. 

Groaning, Fox rolls his eyes and starts to stalk off when Thorn claps him on the back. 

“Good luck, vod.”

He tosses something up as he jogs off and, on instinct, Fox snatches it midair, quickly examines it. 

Another karking condom. 

“Thorn!” He shouts before using every curse in his vocabulary, to the apparent amusement of his brothers. 

Muting their channel, Fox marches off, still swearing under his breath.

-

When he arrives at Riyo’s apartment building she’s already waiting just inside the exit to the landing pad. 

“Fox!” She yelps when she spots him, then flushes indigo before glancing around. “Commander Fox, I mean.”

Nodding a greeting, Fox blinks, his HUD flashing through schematics, checking for potential threats before he stops short of her. 

“You’re supposed to be in your quarters,” he tells her, trying not to sound exasperated or annoyed. 

“I didn’t want you to go into the apartment,” she explains. “This flu has my guards and Lassa down. I don’t want you catching it as well, then passing it along to the men.”

It’s thoughtful, but dangerous. 

“I appreciate the concern,” Fox tells her. “But you really do need to wait on your escort before coming down.”

The building is secure, but without her personal guards, she’s at a disadvantage. 

“These windows are pretty, but they expose you to tha-”

Before he can finish his stricture on security and the stupidity of aesthetics over safety, Riyo reaches out and places a hand on his forearm.

“I understand. I won’t disobey an order again, Commander.”

He starts to apologize. It wasn’t an order, and even if it were, she’s got no obligation to follow it, but stops when he sees her lips twitch. She’s teasing him.

Rolling his eyes, Fox jerks his head in the direction of the landing pad. “Right. Lets go.”

His HUD alerts, flashing with minor issues it finds as he walks with Riyo to her transport. 

The door slides open and she ducks in, smiling out at him when he doesn’t follow.

Gesturing to his speeder bike, he shakes his head. 

“I’ll be following.”

Smile fading into disappointment, she nods. “Of course. It’s just-Stone rode with me yesterday, so I assumed that was the protocol…”

Glancing over at his bike, Fox sighs. Damn Stone. 

-

The roof of the luxury transport is too low. Fox keeps hitting his head on it with each stop and go.

Still, the seat is comfortable and it smells nice. He’s tolerated worse.

Riyo fusses with her skirt for a moment before settling, wide golden eyes focusing on him. 

“Did your meeting go well?”

Fox freezes. “Meeting?”

She nods, gives him a cautious look, as though she isn’t sure of his tone. 

“Commander Stone, he said you all had a very important meeting this morning. I was just-was it meant to be a secret? I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

Helmet tapping the roof, Fox sighs. 

“No, it wasn’t a secret.” Though he wishes his brothers had treated it as such. “Commander Stone isn’t in trouble.”

Unless he tells her any details of said meeting.

Riyo’s expression softens into relief. 

“Good.” Her head tilts, nose wrinkling. “What was it about?”

Fox is immediately grateful for his bucket. Lying isn’t something he, or any of his brothers, have any aptitude for. 

“A...health update.” Which is true, from a certain point of view. 

“About this awful flu?”

“Communicable diseases, in general.”

She nods. “Well, I’m glad to hear they’re taking the men’s health seriously. Saché mentioned working with Senator Mattani on organizing something, it seems they were successful.”

Fox snorts. Saché. He knew she was behind it.

“Was it informative?”

Too informative he thinks bleakly, his gaze settling on the exposed stretch of skin on her legs, between the tops of het boots and the bottom of her skirt.

His voice cracks. “Very.”

When his HUD begins pulling up newly added information on Pantorans, he blinks it away and tears his eyes from her legs.

Clearing his throat, he reaches for an alternative topic.

“Where is your other aide?”

“Gettsi?”

Fox doesn’t remember names, though a quick search could’ve given it to him. Unless they were boils on their butts, aides’ names didn’t get committed to memory. 

“You only mentioned one being sick,” he adds. 

Pressing her palms to her skirt, Riyo’s eyes drop to her lap.

“She decided to stay back, help the others.”

Something tells him she’s not being entirely honest, but since he’d skirted the truth with his description of his morning activity, he lets it slide. 

“How did you get assigned guard duty?” She asks, clearly trying to avoid discussing her aide. 

If she’d asked one of the others, they’d tell her he was marking his territory, which was ridiculous. He’d sent Stone with her just the day before, after all, even if that had clearly been a mistake. 

The truth was...he was simply trying to keep her from having to deal with his over excited brothers. There’s no telling what embarrassing things they’d tell her about their morning. His being there was as much for her benefit as his.

“Flipped a credit,” he tells her. 

Despite seemingly knowing it's a lie, she smiles. 

“I’m glad you lost then.”

Fox snorts. He didn’t say he lost.

-

Most of Fox’s day is spent standing at the back of the Pantoran pod as an endless debate rages over hyperspace trade lanes. 

He’s finally persuaded to sit when Senator Amidala joins them at midday.

“My pod is too lonely,” she explained. Sabé and Saché had left the evening before and her replacement aides were delayed. She only had her head of security as company, and he was apparently not as cheerful company. 

He ends up seated between the senators, listening to them discuss the motives and strategies of the various systems, trying to untangle the akk nest that was the proposal.

By the end of the session, Fox is certain the Albarrio System is making some questionable decisions, the Corellian Trade Spine attacks are strategic, and that Riyo Chuchi needs to invest in longer skirts. 

She’d spent much of the session tugging at the hem, and when they finally head to her office for final break in the early evening, it’s ridden alarmingly high on the backs of her thighs. 

Absently, she adjusts it once more as Fox stands gawking at the door to her office. 

Before she notices him leering, he shakes off his stupor and shuts the door, posts himself beside it. 

He’d done a sweep before she’d entered, found nothing of note. Not even the lingering odor of decay. Just her ugly plant and the two holos on her desk he’d pointedly avoided looking at. 

“You can sit down,” she tells him, gesturing to the chairs in front of her desk. “I don’t bite.”

Fox bites back a groan. He knows she doesn’t, that’s the Togruta. Damn sex ed. 

Shaking his head, as much to dislodge the inappropriate thoughts cropping up as to signal that he cannot, Fox sighs. 

“Can’t, ma’am. On duty. Regulation.”

Sad smile hanging on her lips, she wilts. “Of course.”

Dropping into her chair, she chews her lip and starts tapping away on her datapad, glancing up at him occasionally. 

He’s not staring at her, not really. She’s in his line of vision, but his HUD is flashing with alerts, so she’s not the center of his attention. 

Several trams have apparently gone out of commission for routine maintenance, causing an uproar due to the time. Droids don’t care about rush hour or senators missing meetings with secret lovers. He can already sense clone engineering will get pulled into the mess, probably be put in charge of it by the next day, if not within the hour. 

He blinks through messages, most from Stone, Thire, and Thorn, and most of them vulgar and unimportant, not to even be read in a lady’s presence. 

“Are you alright?”

Fox frowns at the question. 

Looking past the alerts, he finds her staring across the room at him, brows knitted together and lip between her teeth. 

“Fine, ma’am.”

She doesn’t ease much. “Are you sure? You’ve been awfully still.”

Of course. Stillness is unnatural, isn’t that what he’d been told?

“It makes people anxious when you stand there like a block of duracrete,” Sabé told the guard, during their dance lessons, in the early days on Coruscant. 

“We can’t even see you breath sometimes. Fidget or something, let us know you're alive in there,” Saché added, leaning into Jek, winking when he budged only a fraction. 

Clones, however, didn’t ‘fidget’, and Fox told them as much. 

“You’re a right ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Saché muttered, rolling her eyes. 

Sabé, however, just sighed. “At least take off the helmets, Commander. It’s unnerving, a bunch of stiff faceless troops just glaring out at you.”

At the time, Fox had rolled his eyes, acquiesced despite thinking they were simply trying to make it easier to read him and his men. A few more weeks on Coruscant, though, proved them right. Stillness was upsetting to citizens. 

“I’m fine,” Fox assures Riyo. 

Then, despite it breaking protocol, he reaches up and breaks the seals on his helmet. He’s had enough of his brothers’ dirty messages for a while anyway. 

It’ll ease her anxiety to see a face.

“Fox!” 

Or not. 

She rushes over, eyes wide, panic in every feature when she reaches him. 

“What happened?” 

She reaches up, cool fingers brushing over his cheek before she quickly pulls them back. 

Frowning, Fox reaches up, rubs at the sore spot. 

“Oh, got kicked,” he explains, more concerned that he’d skipped shaving than whatever injury Thire’s clumsy foot had caused. 

That doesn’t seem to alleviate her worry. 

She starts to reach for him again, but stills her hand, steps back, studying it with a little more distance. “It looks awful.”

“I’ve had worse.”

Her lips pucker in a frown and she brushes a strand of hair from her face. 

“Be that as it may, let me find you some bacta.”

“Save it.” It’s not worth wasting any on. Clones are engineered to heal faster than baseline humans. It’ll be gone come morning, bacta or not. It’s a waste of resources. 

Huffing, she crosses her arms. 

“Either we put bacta on it or I drag you to medical.”

Fox rolls his eyes. He’d like to see her try. 

Staring down at her, Fox sets his jaw. He’s not going to medical, not with that karking doctor possibly lurking around still. 

Her eyes widen and her lips turn down, expression softening. “Please.”

His resolve crumbles the moment the word passes her lips. 

“Fine,” he grumbles, popping the pouch on his belt open and fishing out the single packet of bacta. He rips the top off. “But I’ll use my own.”

It isn’t until he squeezes it and something distinctively not bacta comes out that he realizes he’s made a mistake. 

The damn condom. Stone’s death will be slow and painful. 

“That’s some rather interesting packaging they’ve used on your bacta,” Riyo comments, leaning in. 

Fox crushes it in his hand to hide the evidence, but not quick enough. Her face is already indigo in embarrassed realization. 

“I don’t think that’s going to help with the bruising much,” she tells him, her voice cracking with laughter. 

Face burning, Fox bites back a swear as whatever lubricant the condom is bathed in begins oozing between his fingers and then, to his mortification, the condom slips out. 

It falls to the floor of her office between them with a splat.

Silence settles over them as they both stare down at the mess. It was the nightmare end to a nightmare day. 

“Well, it’s definitely not going to do much good now.”

Despite himself, Fox snorts. 

Glancing up, he finds her smiling tightly at him. 

“I hope that didn’t wreck your evening.”

Huffing, he rolls his eyes. 

“I hardly need it for filling out forms and documenting.” Grimacing, he rubs the back of his neck. The muscles are bunching up. “To clarify, I don’t regularly run ‘round with...prophylactics on me.”

The markings above her eyes rise a fraction. 

“I mean-I’m not reckless...not that I’m given the occasion to be-and I wouldn’t be, if I were-” He nearly rubs the lubricant on his face before gritting his teeth. “I had it because of the kar-the health meeting this morning.”

Her nose wrinkles up. 

“What kind of health meeting passes out-” her eyes go wide. “Oh.”

Fox is too grateful not to have to explain the whole sordid affair to realize she’s ducked down and scooped up the goopy mess. 

Cupping it in her hands, she hurries to the bin by her desk and dumps it in before vanishing to the tiny fresher hidden in the corner to wash the lube off. 

“I’m not going to claim to have a wealth of knowledge about...condoms, but,” she makes a face, “that seemed a bit excessive.”

Fox wishes an alarm would sound. He doesn’t want to explain pan-species safe condoms to her, and that they need them for the GAR because his idiot brothers are liable to stick their dicks in anything willing apparently. 

A good disaster would be perfect. Which of course means nothing happens. It’s probably the most boring day Coruscant has ever experienced, all for the sake of tormenting Fox. 

“It’s-ah-protective. For multiple species.”

She takes a breath. “Oh...good.”

Biting her lip, she pulls open the top drawer of her desk and grabs a small grubby tub. Bacta. 

“If you thought throwing condoms around would get you out of medical care, you were wrong,” she tells him, crossing the room and opening the tub.

She stops short of him and hesitates. “May I help?”

He tries to tell her no, but his head turns of its own accord, offering her his cheek before the words hit his tongue. 

Dipping her fingers in the tub, she reaches out and gently dabs the ointment along his jaw and up in his cheek, her fingers probably prickling against his stubble. 

“There,” she finally says, barely audible, more breath over his neck than word. 

She lingers for a moment, so close he can smell her perfumed soap and the traces of her blumfruit lunch on her breath, before speaking again. 

“Does it hurt much?”

No, not at all really, but he shrugs in response. 

“Thorn nicked up his knuckles a few weeks back,” she tells him. “Sabé told him there was an old human treatment for injuries that works as well as any bacta.”

Fox nearly rolls his eyes. He’d heard Thorn babbling something about her cure. Sounded more like manipulation. Something about kissing the injury…

Surely not. 

Hand massaging the bunched muscles on his neck freezing, Fox watches her out the corner of his eye. 

“I don’t know if it would work as well from a non-human, but...if it hurts…”

Fox is fairly certain there’s no real medical benefit from a kiss, though he hadn’t deemed the nonsense even worthy of investigating, but for a moment, he doesn’t care. 

“A little,” he finally tells her, face still turned away, eyes on the shadows forming on the wall. “Hurts a little.”

She shifts, one foot to the other. “I could try, if you like?”

At the moment, he’d like nothing more. 

“Can’t hurt,” he mumbles, ears burning. 

It takes half a heartbeat for her to put her hand on his chest and press up on her toes. 

Her breath ghosts over his skin for a beat, then he feels her lips on his rough cheek, just above his jaw. 

It takes every ounce of self control he has not to turn to her, catch her around the middle and kiss her back. 

“Better?” She asks, her lips brushing the stubble of his jaw, her breath tickling his ear. 

He finally remembers to breathe. 

“Better.”

She seems to hesitate, then drops back on her heels, pulls her hand back. “Good.”

Her tongue starts to run over her lips, but stops and she makes a face. 

“Bacta,” she laughs, rubbing it off with her thumb. 

Fox has to fight off the urge to reach out and wipe it away himself. 

Still standing so close he can feel the warmth of her body radiating out, she smiles up at him. 

It feels like something should happen.

If this were one of the holodramas some of the boys liked, he’d lean in, kiss her senseless. The shot would fade to black and they’d wake up tangled in the sheets of her bed the next morning. 

If this were a holoporn, he’d shove all the things from her desk and they’d never make it out of the office. 

He isn’t some dull holostar, though, this is neither a poorly acted drama or an even more poorly acted porno. 

He’s a clone, and that’s not his life. 

However unfair that may be. 

“Fox…” 

Riyo leans in, just a fraction, her lips still a bit glossy from the bacta. 

Then the comm squawks. 

Stepping back, Fox lifts his comm, trying to ignore the sharp ping of disappointment in his chest and the gutted look on Riyo’s face. 

“Commander Fox here,” he answers. 

“We’ve got a situation with transport down on the decks. We could use your assistance. Would Senator Chuchi be opposed to departing early so we can rearrange the platform? Wintergreen is available to escort her home.”

Glancing back at Riyo, Fox sighs. 

“We’ll be down.”

Jamming his helmet on, he looks back at her, an apology for something rattling around his head. 

She smiles weakly. “Duty calls.”

He nods and opens the door. 

That it does. Whether he likes it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Sorry, that got a bit long. Still, hope y’all enjoyed it. Hoping to get the next chapter done before too long, but...we’ll see.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.
> 
> AN: Hopefully this chapter isn’t a big ole disappointment. It’s mostly the last chapter from Riyo’s pov, so the dialogue in the last half is repeated. If it’s boring, rather than fun, I’m so, so sorry.

The physician sent by the Assembly is Pantoran, which is nothing short of miraculous.

Most medical personnel on Coruscant are human. Pantorans are close enough in biology that normally that isn’t an issue, but Riyo finds it comforting to have the familiar blue on the face of the man examining her staff.

“They’ll all be fine,” he tells her. “Just need to stay in for a week, until the fevers stay away more than a Coruscanti day.”

“Of course,” Riyo agrees. “Should I stay in as well? And Gettsi?”

She hopes not. She needs to be at the senate for the hyperspace route debates. It’ll be available through the live holo feed, but there’s something lost in the feed. She can’t watch reactions, make analysis of her fellow senators. It’s a definite disadvantage.

Still, if the alternative is dragging illness around Coruscant, she’ll stay in.

“It’s only passed by those showing symptoms, in us, anyways, thankfully,” he answers. “We aren’t quite the incubators some other species are.”

He grumbles about Gamorreans, humans, and Fosh before shuffling off, leaving her and Gettsi with medications and directions for their ill comrades.

“We’ll need to request security support,” she tells Gettsi, once he’s gone, off to visit some other well connected Pantorans caught in Coruscant with the flu.

Sighing, she presses her fingers to her temples. 

Asking for assistance isn’t unheard of, she knows some senators seek the Guard out frequently either due to their home guard’s incompetence or simple laziness. Beyond that, the Guard are constantly having new tasks assigned to them, whether they should or not. Their plate is overflowing with projects and duties they were never intended to handle or even trained for. 

“It’s unrealistic to expect them to handle every detail-every instance of trouble. Their scope of duty has been exceeded beyond a reasonable measure,” Senator Amidala had coolly told Senator Tham just weeks before, when he’d demanded the Guard be called for a broken turbolift, in his private apartment no less. “Get it fixed yourself.”

He had, but Riyo suspects that had more to do with Senator Amidala threatening to set her aides on him than any change of heart. 

Riyo dreads requesting their help, being another burden on their already heavily laden shoulders. 

“Won’t that be wonderful,” Gettsi coos. 

Riyo hesitates. “Wonderful?” 

Gettsi nods. “It’ll give you a bit of time with your Commander.”

“Time? No, Gettsi,” Riyo shakes her head. “Commander Fox has far more important things to do than chaperon me.”

“None more enticing though.” She gets a far away look in her eyes. “It’ll be like ‘Corellian General’. You’ll be sitting in your office, lights dimmed, mending a wound-”

“Why in all of Coruscant would I be tending a wound in my office?” She’s mad. Absolutely space brained. 

“He’s a soldier! There’s always an injury to be dealt with!” She smiles dreamily. “Your hands will brush, then…”

She smacks her palms together. 

Riyo arches a brow. “I’ll hit him?”

Gettsi shakes her head. “Goddess! No! He’ll throw you onto your desk and pound you into the next week. Or you can flip him and ride him boneless. Or both. Ohhh, I’d suggest both.”

Rolling her eyes, Riyo heads to her room to file the request, leaving Gettsi to play nursemaid to Lassa and their security officers while indulging her wild fantasies. 

-

“It says Commander Stone has been assigned to you today,” Gettsi tells her, shaking her head. “Well, that is a disappointment.”

She’d picked out an outfit in anticipation of Fox being the escort for the day. A ridiculously revealing dress more suited for a seedy bar with sticky floors and poor lighting than the Senate rotunda. Riyo had soundly informed her she would not be wearing it. 

“But why not?” She’d seemed genuinely confused.

“I’m not-my breasts would fall out!”

“Well, that’s the idea!” She’d huffed, settled her hands on her hips. “Men are very visual.”

“Gettsi…”

“And I know what you're thinking, you don’t have the bust line for it, but trust me, I know more than a few tricks to get the girls up and working.”

“No.”

“But-”

“Absolutely not.” 

Gettsi had sulked after that, leaving Riyo to pick her own outfit in peace. 

“I guess it’s for the best you vetoed the plunging neckline then,” Gettsi adds, handing Riyo her datapad. “Shouldn't set out the prize blumfruit without a purchaser at hand.”

Ignoring her, Riyo takes her datapad and goes over her day’s agenda, wondering if working remotely might not have been such a bad thing. 

-

Commander Stone is just as competent as Fox, but he’s also much less formal. He chats with Senator Amidala’s- Padmé’s-aides much more cheerfully, not staying stock still as they seemingly tease him while waiting at the back of the subcommittee meeting.

“It must be nice,” Padmé comments, when she spots Riyo watching them. “To just be able to...be.”

Riyo nods. Not even Padmé has the privilege of being so informal, with the clones or anyone. She’s as much a senator as Riyo, bound by expectation and status to stay at formal politeness, at least in public. 

Sabé and Saché lack titles or ranks. It gives them certain liberties privilege prevents. 

“Yes, it must,” Riyo agrees, turning back to the front and readying her datapad.

When the meeting mercifully ends, Commander Stone fetches her and walks her back to her office, making comments about the smell, or lack thereof, as they reach the floor. 

“It was really horrific,” he tells her, chuckling. “Thorn slept in the hall and Fox got exiled to his office.”

Riyo feels her face warm. She’s aware of just where Fox slept. And how he slept, probably.

“Had to burn the krif-the, ah, blacks, their body gloves,” he adds awkwardly. “Apologies for the language, ma’am.”

“Please, Commander, don't censor yourself for me,” she softly tells him as they enter her office. “My father grew up among farmers, you can hardly shock me.”

He nods. 

“I appreciate that, ma’am, but it’s actually a reg.” He shrugs. “No swearing in front of civvies. Gotta keep it clean. We, ah, got reprimanded, early on, for using offensive language.”

“I heard you swear around Senator Amidala’s aides,” she points out.

“Well…” he sighs, the noise amplified through his helmet. “That’s different.”

Frowning, Riyo doesn’t press him for an explanation. Despite the fact that she’s heard several of her fellow senators swear worse than an outer rim pirate, it was probably one of them that got the Guard the reprimand, and she’d rather not make him relive the indignity. 

Instead, she offers him a drink and snack and they listen to the HoloNet top ten out of Malastare as she reviews her notes until it’s time to go.

-

“Gettsi, did something happen to my skirt?” Riyo asks as she tugs at the hem.

It’s shrunk, that’s the only explanation. She’s certainly not gotten any taller. It had fit when she’d packed it away before coming to Coruscant.

“No,” Gettsi answers, voice muffled from deep in the closet where she’s digging out some boots. 

“Are you sure?” She tries to stretch it down. “It’s gotten too short.”

One tall boot flies out of the closet, then another, before Gettsi comes wheezing out.

“Oh?”

She’s got guilt all over her face. 

Eyes narrowing, Riyo freezes. “What did you do to my skirt, Gettsi?”

Huffing, Gettsi brushes sweaty hair back and lifts her chin. “I fixed it.”

“Fixed?” Riyo groans. “Did you hem it up?”

“A little.”

“A little?” Riyo turns, gestures to the bottom of the skirt. “If I bend down I'm likely to flash my entire backside!”

“Then wear some enticing panties.” Gettsi rolls her eyes. “Do I have to think of everything? Put on a thong. I’ve got an edible one if you’d like. I’m willing to donate to the cause.”

Before Riyo can even express horror at the thought of Gettsi owning edible thongs, let alone borrowing one, the protocol droid totters in.

“Mrs. Gevi? Senator Chuchi’s escort will arrive in five minutes.”

Gettsi squeals. “Oh! Put on the boots and get downstairs! Hurry up Senator! Can’t make the Commander wait!”

She doesn’t give her a chance to argue, just shoves the boots into her arms and hurries her to the door, down the hall, to the lift. 

“I’m supposed to meet him here,” she reminds her, but Gettsi waves it off.

“It’s safer. Don’t want to expose him if we don’t have to.”

Riyo can’t even point out that Commander Stone had come to the apartment the previous day before the doors slide shut. Her aide is a menace, and manipulative evidently. She’d planned this from the moment she’d seen Fox’s name on the memo saying he’d be the escort for the day. 

She’s halfway to the bottom before she has enough sense to pull her boots on and make sure her headpiece is on straight. 

Steadying her nerves, she adjusts her skirt again. It’s not scandalously short, she’s seen Padmé’s aides in far more questionable things, and Orn Free Taa’s assistants are often the subject of discussion when the subject of a uniform dress code comes up. Riyo’s newly altered outfit will hardly register as even brushing with inappropriate. 

Still, as she isn’t even sure if Fox has an interest, it feels a bit foolish.

Shaking away the doubt, he likely won’t even notice the few extra inches Gettsi removed, Riyo looks up and spots Fox, already striding in. His skirt is a respectable length, she notes irritably. 

“Fox!” She calls out, her voice too high, his title missing. She winces and amends her greeting. “Commander Fox, I mean.”

He nods by way of greeting, crosses to her, probably scanning the lobby as he does.

“You’re supposed to be in your quarters,” he points out, a little terse, even through the modulator on his helmet.

“I didn’t want you to go into the apartment,” she explains, hoping her blush is excused as coming from rushing downstairs to meet him. “This flu has my guards and Lassa down. I don’t want you catching it as well, then passing it along to the men.”

They probably should have thought of that with Commander Stone the day before, in retrospect. 

“I appreciate the concern, but you really do need to wait on your escort before coming down.” He points to the wide, sweeping windows. “These windows are pretty, but they expose you to tha-”

Riyo smiles. She’s heard him give the same criticism before, and she half wonders if he hasn’t got the speech memorized at this point. 

Reaching out, she gently places a hand on his forearm.

“I understand. I won’t disobey an order again, Commander.”

For a moment he stares at her, clearly working through what she’s said, and she hopes he catches the jest. Then, despite the helmet, she’s certain he’s rolling his eyes at her. His head jerks toward the landing pad. 

“Right. Let’s go.”

She has to quicken her step to keep from getting bowled over by a set of repair droids, then ducks in her transport, carefully holding down her skirt as she slides in. When Fox doesn’t follow, as Commander Stone had the day before, she peeks out.

“I’ll be following,” he explains, gesturing to a speeder bike parked nearby. 

“Of course,” Riyo nods, hoping the disappointment isn’t too evident. “It’s just-Stone rode with me yesterday, so I assumed that was the protocol…”

Fox studies her for a moment, then looks back at his bike, seemingly weighing options. Then he sighs.

“Budge over, ma’am.”

The back of the transport isn’t quite to his size. His helmet keeps bumping against the roof with each jerk of the ride. Riyo fights with her skirt as she watches him in her periphery, adjusting his own skirt and glancing around, comically out of place in the plush luxury of her transport. 

“Did your meeting go well?” She finally asks, once she’s sure her skirt isn’t going to give him an indecent view. 

Fox freezes. “Meeting?”

Riyo nods, afraid she’s misstepped with her first attempt at conversation. 

“Commander Stone, he said you all had a very important meeting this morning. I was just-was it meant to be a secret? I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

He’d been so pleasant and cheerful with her.

Fox sighs. “No, it wasn’t a secret. Commander Stone isn’t in trouble.”

Though she gets the impression there might be an unspoken ‘yet’ at the end of that statement.

“Good.” She tilts her head, nose wrinkling. “What was it about?”

Because he seems awfully edgy about something he clearly wants her to view as routine or mundane. His hesitation only adds to her suspicion.

“A...health update.”

“About this awful flu?” It must be worse than she’d thought if they’re giving special briefings to the Guard. 

“Communicable diseases, in general.”

Nodding, Riyo eases a little. 

“Well, I’m glad to hear they’re taking the men’s health seriously.” Because they often seem terrifyingly abandoned in most arenas that aren’t to the benefit of the Republic. “Saché mentioned working with Senator Mattani on organizing something, it seems they were successful.”

She hears a soft snort and glances up.

“Was it informative?”

He hesitates again, and Riyo gets the feeling he’s studying her, then his voice cracks through his helmet.

“Very.” He quickly asks, eager to move on, “Where is your other aide?”

Riyo frowns, baffled why he’d wonder about either of her attendants. They’re not like Padmé’s, always interacting with the Guard. “Gettsi?”

“You only mentioned one being sick,” he clarifies.

Riyo presses her palms to her skirt, pushing it down. Of course he’d notice that. 

“She decided to stay back, help the others.”

Which is the truth, from a certain point of view. Riyo is certain Gettsi had been plotting to leave her on her own with him since the second the home guard got sick. Helping the others in their time of need is only a convenient excuse. 

It’s really for the best, though. There’s no telling what embarrassment Gettsi would rain down on them if she’d come along. 

She tries to steer the conversation away from her devious aide. 

“How did you get assigned guard duty?” 

For a moment she feels him staring, and she instantly knows his answer won’t be a whole truth.

“Flipped a credit,” he finally answers. 

Riyo can only smile at such an obvious fabrication.

“I’m glad you lost then.”

-

“You can sit down,” she tells him, once he’s checked her office, assured himself there's no danger, and she’s adjusted her skirt as discreetly as she can. “I don’t bite.”

Riyo thinks she hears a small noise, but decides she must’ve imagined it when she sees him shake his head and hears a definite sigh.

“Can’t, ma’am. On duty. Regulation.”

Regulation. “Of course.”

They’d make a regulation or protocol for when they were allowed to breathe if they could.

Settling into her chair, Riyo pushes down the disappointment that she won’t see his face, glancing up occasionally to see how he’s doing.

His stance is stiff, unmoving, and when Riyo notices the chrono has ticked off an alarming amount of time, she plucks up the courage to break the silence. 

“Are you alright?”

His helmet tilts.

“Fine, ma’am.”

Worrying her lip a little more between her teeth, Riyo prods a bit more. “Are you sure? You’ve been awfully still.”

Frighteningly still. She didn’t know anyone could go so long without moving. 

“I’m fine,” he repeats, more weary than annoyed. 

A moment passes as he seems to consider something, then he reaches up, releasing the seals on his helmet.

Riyo’s heart stops.

On the left side of his face is an ugly bruise. It’s dark, even in the low light of her office, hateful looking and painful. 

“Fox!”

Hurrying around her desk, she half runs to him.

“What happened?”

Her fingers brush over his stubbly cheek, warm and injured, before she thinks better of it. It’s too intimate a gesture, and she’s heard too many awful tales of senators and their families trying to take liberties to violate his space. She’s already forgotten too many times, reaching out and touching his arm thoughtlessly. 

Fox doesn’t flinch though, just reaches up and absently rubs the bruising. He seems more annoyed than anything. 

“Oh, got kicked.”

She wants details. Was he in a fight? Does he have any other injuries? Who did this? But she bites her worried questions back. It’s his decision to tell more or not. 

So she settles on pointing out the obvious. “It looks awful.”

He shrugs. “I’ve had worse.”

If that was meant to ease her worries, it does a poor job of it. Her stomach actually rolls, imagining all the terrible injuries he’s probably endured in his short life. 

“Be that as it may, let me find you some bacta.”

“Save it.” 

Riyo huffs, crosses her arms, sets him in her sternest look.

“Either we put bacta on it or I drag you to medical.”

He doesn’t seem to think much of her threat, just rolls his eyes. When he sets his jaw and his own stern glare, she knows she needs a different tactic. 

She widens her eyes, gives him her most pitiful expression. “Please.”

He swallows, lips parting a breath, and Riyo knows she’s won.

“Fine,” he grumbles as he reaches in his belt, pulls out what seems to be a single use Bacta packet. “But I’ll use my own.”

When he squeezes it, a thin substance oozes out, but something isn’t quite right. Riyo leans in to examine it a little closer. 

“That’s some rather interesting packaging they’ve used on your bacta.”

It almost looks like…

She feels her face rush with heat just as Fox crushes the little package in his hand, sending more of the slimy goo out between his fingers. He looks so horrified and red faced, she barely keeps from laughing. 

“I don’t think that’s going to help with the bruising much.”

His mouth hangs open, like a guppie caught in a net, unsure what to do. Then something falls noisily to the floor between them. 

Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, Riyo quietly looks down at it. 

“Well,” she takes a breath, smiles up at him, “it’s definitely not going to do much good now.”

Meeting her eyes, he snorts. 

“I hope that didn’t wreck your evening.”

She really hopes not, but more to know he’s not attached than anything else. 

“I hardly need it for filling out forms and documenting,” he mutters, rubbing at his neck. Then his eyes go wide in late realization. “To clarify, I don’t regularly run ‘round with...prophylactics on me. I mean-I’m not reckless...not that I’m given the occasion to be-and I wouldn’t be, if I were-” 

She almost laughs when he starts to run his free hand over his face before remembering the lubricant on it, grits his teeth. 

“I had it because of the kar-the health meeting this morning.”

Nose wrinkling, Riyo stares at him. 

“What kind of health meeting passes out-oh.”

That kind. Gettsi would be thrilled. She should’ve been invited as a key speaker. 

Kneeling down, Riyo scoops up the mess as best she can before hurrying over to her bin and dumping it. The droids are probably used to such things turning up in senate offices, with Orn Free Taa and those Quarren running around. 

Hurrying to her fresher, she washes her hands and frowns. 

“I’m not going to claim to have a wealth of knowledge about...condoms, but,” she tells him, smiling, trying to lighten the mood, “that seemed a bit excessive.”

Judging by his expression, it misses the mark by a wide margin. His ears go redder and the hand at his neck goes still for a moment. 

“It’s-ah-protective. For multiple species,” he finally, reluctantly, explains. 

“Oh...good.” She supposes. 

Biting her lip, she pulls open the top drawer of her desk and grabs the little tub of bacta she keeps for minor injuries. 

“If you thought throwing condoms around would get you out of medical care, you were wrong,” she tries joking again, opening the tub as she crosses to him. 

She stops, gnaws her lip and peers up at him. “May I help?”

Wordlessly, he turns his head, the purpling bruise with tiny abrasions presented to her. 

Dipping her fingers in the balm, Riyo reaches up and gently dabs his cheek and jaw. 

He hasn’t shaved, or his beard grows back quickly, because his stubble is thick and prickly under her fingers. This close she can see the ridge of a scar on his neck, new growth of his hair curling up behind his ear, hear his breathing, a little ragged. 

Taking a deep breath, she catches the scent of soap and sweat, traces of caf.

“Humans stink,” she remembers her cousin saying, holding her nose as a group of human boys had passed them during a family trip to the Vacationer’s district when they’d been little. “They’re gross.”

Riyo had nodded her agreement, made a face when she saw one flicking sweat at what was probably his sister. 

When she got older she realized Pantorans had their own unpleasant odors, but she’d held tight to the belief humans stunk. Fox, though, doesn’t. It’s odd, very human, but not in a bad way. 

“There,” she finally says when she’s done. 

Hovering, she watches his jaw tense. 

“Does it hurt much?”

He only shrugs in response. 

A memory pricks at the edges of her mind. 

“Thorn nicked up his knuckles a few weeks back,” she remembers aloud. “Sabé told him there was an old human treatment for injuries that works as well as any bacta.”

He’d scraped them up trying to retrieve something along the tram line, caught between the rails. 

“You’ll want to put bacta on it anyway,” she’d warned him. “But this’ll help with the pain.”

She’d kissed his knuckles. Thorn had stared at her for a moment, then at his hand. 

“All better?” Sabé asked. 

He’d grinned. “Better than ever.”

Sabé rolled her eyes and pulled some bacta ointment from her pocket. “Better safe than sorry though.”

Curious, Riyo asked Padmé about it. 

“I didn’t know humans had pain killers in their spit,” she’d told her. 

Padmé laughed. 

“We don’t.” She paused, thought for a moment, then explained.

‘Kissing it better’ was a comfort, usually reserved for younglings from their parents for some minor injury. When Riyo pointed out Thorn was neither a youngling nor Sabé’s child, Padmé shrugged. 

“Sometimes it’s-it’s more about closeness. Letting another person know someone cares. They’re hurting, but they’re loved.”

If anyone needs reassurance and closeness, it’s the clones. Fox especially. 

“I don’t know if it would work as well from a non-human,” she admits, not sure if that even matters, “but...if it hurts…” 

His breath catches. 

“A little,” he answers. “Hurts a little.”

Riyo feels her pulse in her throat, speeding. 

“I could try, if you like?”

She wants so badly for him to say yes. 

“Can’t hurt.”

That’s enough for her. 

Pressing up on her toes, she balances herself with a hand on his chest, leans in. 

His cheek is even rougher against her lips than her fingers, bristly hair pricking her as she presses a soft kiss to the bruise. She lingers, tempted to press another kiss along his jaw, then his lips, but uses her waning self control to keep from it. 

Her lips skim his cheeks as she exhales a question, “Better?” 

She hears his breath catch.

“Better.”

She nearly presses another kiss to him-two would do twice as much good, right?- but falls back on her heels instead. “Good.”

She feels something on her lips, and goes to lick it off, before remembering she’d just slathered bacta on his cheek. 

“Bacta,” she laughs, feeling dull witted as she rubs it away. 

Feeling his eyes burning a line through her, she looks up at him, smiles. 

He’s watching her, his eyes tracing her face, and she’d swear to the goddess he wants to kiss her. She wants him to kiss her. 

This is no youngling’s tale, though, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. They’re in the very grim present, frozen in a moment with their wants very clear, very close, but very much outside their grasp. 

They just need to push a little closer. 

“Fox…”

She leans in, lips parting, wanting him to meet her halfway. 

Then his comm squawks.

Falling back, Fox answers, giving her an apologetic look as he does. 

“Commander Fox here,” he answers.

“We’ve got a situation with transport down on the decks. We could use your assistance. Would Senator Chuchi be opposed to departing early so we can rearrange the platform? Wintergreen is available to escort her home.”

He looks at her, something like regret in his eyes, then sighs. 

“We’ll be down.”

Putting his helmet on, he waits for her. 

She forces a smile, pushes down the bitterness at the intrusion. This is their life, fractured frozen moments and all. 

“Duty calls.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.

“Why do we have to attend this gala in dress uniforms?”

Because some idiot ordered them to, Fox thinks irritably. The senators don’t want fully kitted out soldiers at their party guarding them, reminding them there is, in fact, a war being fought all around them. They’d rather avoid looking at the living breathing embodiment of their failure to keep the peace. 

Beyond that, apparently their armor, scarred but as clean as possible, clash with the decor. Previous engagements had left the organizers of this gala with the brilliant idea to keep that from happening. 

Thire tugs at the collar, gold trimmed and scratchy, too high on his neck. 

Thorn pulls at his crotch. “They are aware we are men, right?”

Fox ignores him, adjusts himself in his own badly tailored pants. He’s got his doubts that whoever commissioned the dress uniforms knew clones were men with all the anatomy that entailed. 

Jek stomps in, shirt on and pants draped over his arm, scowling. 

“I have concerns.”

Rolling his eyes, Fox shakes his head. 

“Concerns or not, these are what we are wearing.”

“But,” Jek gestures first to the pants, then waves his hand at his crotch, “things do not fit, Commander.”

Pointing first to his own pants, then around him, at Thire, Thorn, and Stone, Fox glares. 

“Unless you’ve got something the rest of us haven’t, the pants fit.”

Poorly, uncomfortably, leaving little to the imagination, but they do fit. 

Glaring for a moment, Jek finally stomps off, grumbling darkly under his breath. 

Dropping into his wobbly chair, Fox winces and looks down, sighs. He was bred for combat and a pair of fancy pants are going to crush his nuts while defending politicians at a dance. 

It’s degrading. 

“Well, if they get an eyeful, it’s their own fault,” Stone says as he plops into the chair on the other side of the desk. 

Thire sits much more gingerly as Thorn continues to fuss with his crotch. 

“Let’s just hope none of those idiots asks any of us to dance. We’re straining the material enough as it is, one twist and the stitching will pop.”

Though if previous events were any indication, it’s not much of a danger. Fox and his brothers will get less interaction than the wall art. The only people who have sought them out for dances at other galas have been Senator Amidala and her aides, and seeing as Sabé and Saché are still both out on an assignment, that leaves only the senator as a possible dance partner. 

An image of another senator, blue skin and purple hair, bright eyes and unfairly soft lips, forms in Fox’s mind. 

He doubts she’ll ask him to dance, and even if she did, he'll decline. She’s still new to the senate, still trying to make alliances, and dancing with a clone wouldn’t exactly help her stock. As disappointing as it might be, it’s the smart decision. Senator Amidala has clout and connections, she can do as she pleases and not fear the repercussions. 

Riyo is navigating a social and political minefield, and he won’t be her downfall. 

Not that she’ll ask anyways. 

“At least the jacket covers things,” Thorn says, interrupting Fox’s thoughts. 

He smoothes out the front of the jacket, Guard red, adjusts the cuffs at his gloves. 

It is a small mercy. The jacket was designed long enough to allow the Guard to keep at least one sidearm hidden underneath. Out of sight but not out of reach. 

“We look like servers,” Thire points out, lip curled as he watches Thorn struggle with his blaster. “Might as well give us a tray and let us pass out refreshments.”

Stone huffs. “Don’t give them any ideas.”

Fox almost laughs. That would be the next step, double duty as security and wait service. 

If he ever sees his batchmates again, they’d never let him live it down. 

Ignoring them, Fox pulls up the gala layout on his datapad. He’s just reviewed the rooftop assignments, securing the damned windows is always a nightmare, and moved on to finalize the placements for the Guard around the perimeter, when the hum of chatter dies around him. 

Knowing he’s going to regret it, he looks up. 

Thorn, who’d finally righted his outfit, snug pants hidden under the jacket and blaster carefully concealed at his side, is sprawled gracelessly in the broken down couch Fox and Stone had saved from the garbage, a box carefully balanced between his hands. 

“Is there some reason you held on to this?”

It takes a moment for Fox to process what he’s said and a fraction more to recognize the box. 

The damn party condoms. 

“Well this is hurtful, Fox,” Thorn tells him. “You know, the rest of us might like to practice safe sex too.”

“And with glow in the dark dicks at that,” Thire adds, walking over and taking the box, jabbing a finger at the lettering. 

Stone laughs. “You only need it to glow so you never have to turn on the lights and see what ugly creature you’re humping.”

“Ha ha.”

Grunting, they’re idiots, all of them, Fox pushes up from his seat and stomps over, snatching the box away. 

“Taa gifted them to me,” he snaps. “I was saving them for Wolffe. Figured it’d be worth a laugh to watch him open them up in front of his men.”

They’d learn a few new words, at the least. 

“Right, right, ” Thorn chuckles. “We believe you.”

Fox rolls his eyes. 

“I don’t care if you believe me.” It’s the truth. 

Thire examines the box carefully before letting out a long, loud sigh. 

“Hasn’t even broken the seal.” He shoots Fox a disappointed look. “What a waste.”

He grabs the box and rips it open, takes a handful and tosses the first at Thorn and the second to Stone, before leaning against the desk, sifting through the contents. 

“Vibrating, glowing,” he reads off. “Oh! Blumfruit flavored!”

He tosses that one at Fox’s face. It bounces off his nose, falls to the floor.

“No? What about,” he squints at the next packet he picks up, “a barbed one?” He winces and throws that one in the bin. “Never mind.”

Fox would thank him for acknowledging that particular condom is a poor choice by any standard, but settles on glaring when Thire continues to read off flavors and colors.

Finally, he has a small pile of condoms in varying shades of blue, all with excited lettering across them describing their abilities and flavors.

“Shall I put these in your desk drawer?”

“Only if you want me to snap off your dick and store it in there with them,” Fox growls.

He doesn’t have time for this nonsense.

“...you want to take them with you tonight instead?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Thire,” Stone thumps him on the back, then gestures to his pants. “Where would he keep them?”

Thire nods. “Ah, good point. Who makes pants without pockets, anyways?”

“Or jackets,” Stone adds, patting down his sides. 

Crossing his arms and pinching the bridge of his nose, Fox listens as they begin discussing possible places to hide the condoms. 

“You are forgetting the inner lining of the jacket,” Thorn reminds them, throwing an arm around Fox’s shoulder and grabbing the edge of the unbuttoned jacket. “You could keep two or three in that hem.”

He demonstrates his theory by stuffing several packets, declared ‘blumfruit flavored!’, in the small gap in the lining and outer material of Fox’s jacket.

Grinding his teeth, Fox shrugs Thorn off, but not before he pushes one more packet, this one ‘electric glowing blue!’, into the gap.

“Go brief your squads,” he finally tells them, irritably trying to get the colorful packets out from behind the shimmersilk liner.

Going to his desk, he digs out the sewing repair kit from the bottom drawer, rips the seam and lets three condom packets fall to the floor. There’s a fourth stuck further up, but it’s caught on something, so he gives it up. It’ll get trapped in the hem eventually. 

He carefully repairs the rip, hardly perfect, but as it’ll be inside and therefore unseen, it’ll do.

Sighing, he goes to the cracked mirror propped against the wall, another save from the garbage, and checks his appearance.

Despite being snug, the dress uniform is impressive, if a bit gaudy. Deep red with golden trim and synthetic nerf skin boots, Fox thinks Thire wasn’t too far off the mark in saying they looked like waitstaff. He’s sure he’d seen the snooty server at an Alderaanian restaurant in Coco Town wearing something similar a few weeks prior, when he’d accompanied Senators Organa and Amidala as well as Riyo there.

Maybe it’s an Alderaanian cut, he thinks as he secures his blaster.

Granted, he hadn’t been paying much attention to the servers. 

It was hard enough to keep vigilance, watch for danger, but it was twice as difficult when one of his charges was dressed so distractingly. He’d never been more grateful for his brothers and their professionalism. His confidence in his ability to be an effective escort was shaken every time he glanced down and caught sight of smooth blue cleavage under a lacy shawl. 

He wonders if she’ll wear something as innocently revealing tonight.

Fox shakes the thought away. 

Running a hand over his jaw, freshly shaven, then through his hair, crisp regulation cut, he hears Jek shout something that sounds suspiciously ‘lightsaber cock’ and lets out a long sigh. 

“This is going to be a long night.”

-

“Stop fidgeting, Senator,” the seamstress tells Riyo, pin between her teeth as she continues her alterations. 

Riyo scowls, but does her best not to move as she carries on.

“This is a really lovely gown,” the seamstress finally says as she steps back, takes the pin from her mouth and smiles. “Shimmersilk is hard to get these days.”

“We know,” Lassa mutters. 

Riyo simply nods. 

They were fully aware of the rarity of shimmersilk. And Corellian gossamer. And thread, and good aged nerf leather. The war had created something of a transportation disaster for fine goods. 

It’s how they’d ended up with a secondhand gown in the first place. 

“It’s not that big a deal,” she’d told Lassa, when she’d begun moaning about how her dress wouldn’t be finished for the gala. “Padmé reuses dresses. It’s not the-”

“Padmé Amidala has enough dresses that she could wear a different one ever day for a standard year and when it came back around, no one would remember she’d ever worn the old outfit!”

While that was true, it didn’t change the fact. Riyo’s dress wouldn’t be completed and she had to have something for the dreadful gala.

“Well, see if you can borrow one of hers then,” Gettsi huffed. “Must I think of everything?”

Lassa had opened her mouth to argue, but had frozen with a snarl on her face. Gettsi had a point. 

“Of course you can borrow a dress,” Padmé told her, ushering Riyo through her apartment. “And if you don’t see anything in my closet, we can go through the girls’.”

“Will they mind?” Riyo asked, apprehensive about digging through anyone’s clothes without permission.

Padmé laughed. 

“Half their dresses are my dresses. Even though we don’t all have the same proportions anymore, they still like to borrow things.”

As it turned out, they did have to go through the other girls’ closet. Padmé’s dresses were all slightly too big, too long and too baggy in the hips. Saché’s were too short, the bust lines all too low and too stretched out. Sabé’s needed the least alterations to work. Right length, fit well through the hips and waist, only the bust needed raised and taken up. 

“This should hold up nicely,” the seamstress adds, fussing with the silvery material along the neckline. “You can dance all night in it.”

Riyo simply grimaces. She’d rather not dance at all. It was never her favorite activity, nor is there anyone she’s particularly inclined to partner with.

No one she’s allowed to dance with anyways. 

“You cannot ask any of the clones to dance,” Lassa had already warned her. “And don’t throw Senator Amidala or her aides in my face about it. She’s not a freshly elected senator with no connections or resources. This is still politics, Senator, and no matter your feelings on the situation, clones don’t get you clout.”

She was right, and Riyo hated her a little more for it. 

Smoothing the dress down, Riyo forces a smile. 

“You did a wonderful job,” she agrees.

Bowing away, the seamstress is just out of earshot when Gettsi totters forward to inspect.

“Love of the Goddess, she didn’t leave you even a crack of cleavage did she?” She shakes her head. “It had such a darling sloping neckline before.”

“She had to,” Lassa grinds out, battling to keep her temper in check. “If she’d left it where it was her chest would’ve been hanging out by the end of the first hour.” 

Gettsi waves the concern away, or more likely thinks that would be an acceptable option. 

Rather than argue, Lassa rolls her eyes and goes to help the seamstress gather her tools. 

“It’s just tragic. She stitched up the hip slit too.”

Riyo sighs. 

“Gettsi…”

“I’m just saying, what’s the use of your figure if you cover it all up,” Gettsi adds. “The Commander will be there, I heard the Guard talking about it. You could’ve at least given the man something to enjoy during the whole boring affair.”

She’d offered the same advice every time she knew Fox would be around. Wear something low cut, enticing, touchable. 

“Tactile creatures, men are.”

Riyo half thinks she’d voted for the shimmersilk outfit for that very reason. 

“Let’s get to my hair,” Riyo finally tells her, ignoring her continued pouting. 

“At least wear some crotchless panties,” Gettsi grumbles as she begins combing Riyo’s hair. “You know, in case you get caught up in a closet or something. They’ll make things go smoother.”

Riyo presses her fingers to her eyes. 

“Or, better yet, wear none at all.” She begins braiding and twisting. “The point being you need to ride that dick before he loses interest, and with the way you’ve been displaying the goods he may be.”

“If he’s losing interest why would I even want to have sex with him?” Asks, instantly knowing she won’t get a reasonable response. 

Gettsi’s hands still and she frowns. “I don’t understand the question. Have you not seen the man? I’d let him take me over a chair and bang me until I couldn’t walk, even if I never spoke to him again. It’d be worth a dislocated hip even.”

Shaking her head, Riyo just sighs. 

“I’m wearing panties.”

Huffing, Gettsi rolls her eyes. “Suit yourself.”

-

The gala is as boring as predicted. More so, maybe, since the Guard are deprived of their helmets. No private conversations or joking, just watching over privileged idiots in overpriced outfits dancing, drinking, and eating food and wines the men protecting them will never have the luxury of trying. 

Twice Fox has to give directions to the fresher to drunken aides, had vomit splatter across his boots, and several times has had garbage handed to him by Senators too tipsy to recognize the Guard emblem on his jacket. He and the others are nothing more than all purpose servants. 

His only reprieve is when he spots Riyo across the room. 

She’s in shimmersilk, a deep purple color, like the evening sky just after sunset. It dips, sags a bit in the front, and the first time Fox sees it he nearly groans. He can just imagine the view it might be giving the men she dances with. 

To Fox’s relief, she stays mostly to her table, disinclined for whatever reason, to dance much. 

Still, she does dance, and Fox can’t help but grind his teeth as he watches the aide from Humbarine let his hand wander entirely too low on her hip. 

His feet are already in motion, ready to read the groping bastard the code of conduct, when something is shoved in his hand. More garbage. 

“There’s a trash receptacle to your left, Senator,” he hears a soft but firm voice tell the drunk. 

Senator Amidala takes the soiled napkin from Fox and pushes them back into her fellow Senator’s hand. 

“I have the utmost faith you can dispose of this yourself.”

Too stunned to speak, Senator Bants simply glares and takes his own trash to the bin. 

“Thank you, Senator,” Fox quietly tells her as he tucks his hands back behind his back, surveys the floor and is relieved to find Riyo back at her table. “It’s unnecessary though. We serve the Republic.”

In whatever ways it needs. Even if those ways are ridiculous. 

“You’re a soldier, Commander. You deserve respect. Not trash.”

He appreciates the sentiment, even if she’s nearly alone in holding it. 

“You have an abundance of patience,” she adds. “I know men who’ve received lesser slights and not stayed so composed.”

Fox shrugs just enough for her to notice. 

“I’m sure it’s something engineered in, ma’am.”

She laughs, then glances back as the music slows. 

“I have to go. Commander Thire has this dance.” She smiles. “You’ll save me one with you, won’t you?”

Fox nods. “I’ll try and squeeze you in.”

Laughing again, she breezes off, and Fox watches as she finds Thire and lets him lead the dance. 

Turning his attention back to the windows, he presses his earpiece.

“How do things look from the outside, lads?”

“Boring as hell,” someone answers back. 

“Watch it. Open comm,” someone else warns. 

Silencing it, it’ll alert if something urgent happens, Fox tucks his hands behind his back again, surveys the room. 

Boring is a fair assessment of the situation. Getting vomited on is about the most exciting thing that has happened. 

Once he’s happy the room is all situation normal, his eyes search out Riyo again. 

His pulse speeds up when he finds her looking distressed, hurrying along the wall toward one of the side halls. 

Immediately he glares around, certain she’s being pursued by that handsy Humbarine, but finds the idiot skulking behind Senator Mattani. 

“What happened with Senator Chuchi?” He whispers to his comm, already skirting the room to catch up with her. 

“Dunno, sir,” Thorn answers. “She was just sitting there then got up in a hurry.”

Speeding up, Fox silences the chatter and maneuvers down the darkened hall. 

He follows it to the end, where it opens to the main atrium, but doesn’t find her. 

Running a hand through his hair, he glares around once more, then hurries back down the hall. 

Much as Sabé and Saché annoy him, they are at least allowed to attend galas with Senator Amidala. Pantoran custom dictates Riyo’s two aides not attend parties for some archaic reason and her planetary security are posted at her transport. 

It’s the stupidest thing Fox has ever heard, and he’s had the misfortune of hearing a lot of stupid things in his short life. What was the point of the aides if not to stay with their senator? 

He’s halfway through mentally composing a letter to the Pantoran Assembly about the idiocy of their social protocols when he hears a faint ‘damn’ from down one of the smaller halls. 

Skidding to a stop, he rushes down the little hall, toward the yellow glow of wall lighting at the end. 

He hears another ‘damn’ then a hiss of frustration just as he barrels out, blaster drawn and ready. 

“Fox!”

Scanning the perimeter, Fox keeps his blaster up as he strides toward her, ready for whatever was causing her to swear. 

“Are you alright, Senator?” He asks as he puts himself between her and the window. “Did the Humbarine do something?”

She stares at him for a moment, hands pressed to her chest, seemingly confused. Then she smiles. 

“No, well, he lacks some very basic decorum, but other than that I’m afraid he’s not the cause of my issue.”

Holstering his blaster, Fox frowns. 

“Which is?”

There’s no physical damage he can see, but she is clearly out of sorts. 

She glances down, at her hands, then back to Fox. 

“I-I’m afraid I’m having a bit of a malfunction.”

Still confused, Fox frowns, eyes tracing over her. 

She grimaces, takes her hands down.

Fox steps back, averts his eyes. The neckline of her dress has dropped dangerously low. 

“It's a borrowed dress,” she explains. “And I’m not as...ample, as the original wearer, unfortunately.”

Fox shakes his head, mouth taking off before his brain can stop him. 

“They’re perfect.” Fox’s stomach drops to his knees, eyes widening in horror at the realization of what he’s said, stammering out a correction, “I mean they're fine-you’re fine.”

He, however, is not fine. Sweat has started beading up on the back of his neck and he’s certain the collar on the jacket has tightened. 

Riyo’s lips twitch up and her brow quirks up, but she has the sweetness of heart not to press him about his slip. 

“Alterations were made,” she adds, hand back on her chest, pushing the neckline back up, “but I must’ve done some damage to the stitching keeping me decent.”

Eyes still averted, Fox nods. 

“I tried to duck out to see if I could manage it myself, but…”

Clearing his throat, Fox unconsciously settles into parade rest, his gaze focused over the top of her head. 

“I-I may be able to help,” he offers, horribly aware of the sweat rolling down his collar. 

She grins. 

“Are you a seamstress as well as a soldier? Or do you want to act as my personal decency guard for the evening?”

Fox lets his eyes flit down, trace her face for a moment before focusing on the wall sconces again. She’s teasing again, which he supposed is a good sign the evening isn’t a wash. 

“I can-I know a bit of mending,” he admits. “We all took it up so we could fix minor rips and tears and not depend on droids.”

That, and everytime the droids repaired anything it was a mess. Sloppy and unprofessional looking. Fox had ripped the seam out the first time he’d seen one, and hadn’t let the droids fix any of his blacks since. 

“But I had a bit more practical solution.”

With engineered efficiency, Fox quickly undoes the buttons down his front and shrugs off the jacket. In one smooth move, he flings it out, drapes it over her shoulders. 

It dwarfs her, the hem skimming her knees and the sleeves large enough she could put both arms through one. It’ll serve its purpose though. 

“Won’t do much if you’re cold,” he tells her, even though he knows as a Pantoran cold isn’t much a bother to her, “but at least it’ll keep them-things-covered.”

Which may be more for his benefit than hers at this point. 

He tucks it around her, gently arranging it at her neck before quickly stepping back. Being that close is dangerous. He can smell the wine on her breath and expensive perfume on her skin and nothing has ever been so intoxicating. 

“There.”

She shifts under the fabric, and Fox watches as she runs her finger over the imitation shimmersilk liner. 

“Thank you,” she tells him, her voice just above a whisper. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble. Now you’re out of uniform.”

Fox shrugs, tugs at the collar of his dress shirt, praying to whatever deity will have him she won’t look down and see his poorly fit pants and the lumpiness at his crotch. 

Still, if giving up his one decent piece of clothing is what it takes to keep her comfortable, it’s an acceptable price. 

“It...looks better on you anyways,” he finally mutters, glancing out the window, grateful it’s an inner window to a garden and therefore not under guard tonight. 

Gesturing to the wall, Fox clears his throat. 

“Let’s get you to your transport.”

When she frowns, looks back in the direction they’d come from, toward the dull drone of the gala still in full swing, Fox clarifies. 

“There’s a droid corridor that runs parallel to the main concourse. It circumvents the ballroom.”

It’ll save her anymore undue embarrassment. 

Going to the wall, Fox runs his hand over the paneling, triggering the holographic pad. He enters his override code and the section hisses, slides out of place just enough for them to enter. 

“Come along.”

It’s not entirely comfortable for Fox. He has to crouch slightly, but it’s plenty wide. Riyo, small as she is, easily fits beside him, wide eyes taking in the dimly lit corridor. 

“You certainly know your way around,” she comments. 

“Have to,” he grunts, nearly hitting his head on a low hanging pipe. “For security.”

Though to be fair it’s hardly concealed knowledge. More aides and Senators know about the passages than Fox cares to think about. Most don’t know them well enough to safely traverse them though. He’s lost count of the number of wayward aides and fresh senators his men have rescued from the labyrinth. 

“Are these like the ones you crawled through when you were on Kamino?”

Fox’s lips twitch. 

He’d told her about sneaking through Tipoca City’s narrow vents and between panels when he’d been a cadet. From the pod room he and his batchmates shared to see other brothers. 

She’d been waiting on Senator Amidala for a meeting, and had watched as her fellow senator had finished lunch with her visiting sister. 

“My sister can’t come to Coruscant for a few months yet. It’s...bad luck-I guess that’s the easiest way to explain it-to travel off world while pregnant,” she explained. “I miss her company more than anything here, I think.”

It was a sentiment Fox could appreciate. Being command class meant he and his batchmates were split apart, sent their own ways to lead other clones. 

Much as he loved all his brothers, Thorn, Thire, and Stone weren’t who he’d trained beside from the start. 

“I understand the feeling,” he’d told her. “They separate commanders. I haven’t seen all my batchmates since Geonosis.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Batchmates?”

He nodded. “We-clones-we’re grown in batches. Normally pods of five.”

Cody, Bly, Wolffe, and Fox. 

“That’s four,” she pointed out. 

“Not all five always make it.” Or they were defective enough termination is the only option. Fox doesn’t even remember their fifth. 

“They just…” she stared at him, a hopeless look in her eyes. “They kill one of you for not being perfect?”

He’d not corrected her. It wasn’t considered killing, it was terminating a defective product, but her horrified expression kept him from defining the term more. 

“We were hardly perfect products,” he’d told her instead. 

Then he’d described sneaking out to other brothers’ rooms, sabacc games played for rations, and forbidden midnight parties spent watching illegally obtained holo films. 

“What kind of films?”

Fox faltered. “They-ah-love stories.”

Porn. It was always porn. 

“Love stories?” She grinned, clearly not believing a word of it. 

“Wholesome, family friendly, love stories.”

Badly acted, awful, disgusting porn. He’d seen trash that would make even Orn Free Taa blush. 

“I’m glad you're such a stickler for propriety.”

Fox had simply rolled his eyes at that. 

“Not much like Kamino, no,” he answers finally.

Kamino would never stand for anything to be so filthy. 

“Senator Taa would love these,” Riyo comments. “Make all his illicit affairs easier, wouldn’t they?”

Fox sighs. 

“He knows.” He shoots her a sidelong look. “How do you think we learned about them?”

One of his ‘guests’ had gotten lost in the winding labyrinth. Until then, the Guard has been ignorant of the crisscrossing corridors. They’d had to enlist Sabé and Saché, the two most knowledgeable in nonexistent places and being where they ought not be, to build a rough map to retrieve the poor girl. Not even they knew every twist and turn though.

The Senate was so old though, level built upon level, that even the newly created maps from clone engineering’s explorations were constantly being revised. It gives Fox a migraine just imagining all the possible avenues, all the danger, it opens the senate up to. 

Riyo makes a distasteful expression. 

“Is there any end to his depravity?”

“None in sight, ma’am.”

She laughs and Fox’s insides do an inexplicable flip. 

They’re halfway to the exit by the landing pad when something squeals ahead of them. 

Fox immediately grabs Riyo around the middle, pulls her to the side, into the narrow shadows, hand pressing her back and out of view as he squints at the cross way. 

Something orange runs past, lekku trailing behind it. A Twi’lek, female by the sounds she’s making, high giggles and squeaks. 

“Come on, Prille!” 

A moment later another figure, Prille, one of the Quarren aides, saunters past, the tentacles on his face writhing unpleasantly. 

“There’s no hurry, my treat, we have all night.”

Fox rolls his eyes. 

It’s only once their footsteps fade into the distance, giggling and the strange, unpleasant sound of the Quarren’s tentacles only echoes, that Fox feels warm breath coming in puffs on his arm, warm fingers gripping his sleeve. 

Turning his head, he finds Riyo, her face pressed to his upper arm, blue fingers bright against the white of his sleeve. Her shoulders shake, and at first he thinks she’s crying, then she looks up. 

She’s barely stifling laughter, golden eyes shining. 

“Speaking of depraved individuals.”

Fox snorts. “Prille definitely gives Senator Taa a run for his credits.”

He even has amateur sex holos out on the HoloNet. It’s vile, but clearly not enough to get him booted from the Senate. 

Fox pushes thought away. That holo was...not something he needed in his head at the moment. 

When he steps out of the shadow, he expects her to release his sleeve, follow beside him as she had been. 

Instead, her hands stay latched to the material, slowly trailing down until she’s holding tight to his hand. 

Fox has never hated his gloves before. Glancing back, he finds her still examining the corridor, frowning and squinting at the bleak surroundings. She’s probably not even aware she’s got a grip on him still. 

Still, Fox allows himself the passing pleasure of it. He’s never held anyone’s hand before. There’s more comfort in it than he’d realized. 

Carefully, he flexes his fingers, wishes he could feel the smoothness of her skin against the rough calluses on his. He wishes he could feel her skin against his lips…

He shakes the filthy thoughts cropping up away. He’s in no state to be having those thoughts. 

The damned pants make them an even more dangerous thing than they normally are. Especially without his jacket concealing him. 

Finally, they reach the end of the path, to a wall with a sliver of light sifting through the almost nonexistent gaps. 

Looking back, Fox glances down at their hands. 

Riyo frowns, looks down, then up at him, eyes going wide as she releases him, stepping back. 

“I’m sorry-I wasn’t-I didn’t realize I was holding on.”

Her grip loosens on the jacket as she presses a hand to her cheek, a faint blush forming there, and to Fox’s panic, down the now exposed front of her chest. 

Automatically, he reaches out, pulls the jacket together. 

He fusses with it for too long, enjoying the closeness entirely too much. His eyes find her lips of their own accord, focus on them. They’re impossibly smooth, that much he already knows, and he can’t stop himself wondering if they’d feel half as soft against his lips, his neck, his chest...

“Not a problem,” he mutters, eyes darting away, as he starts to pull back. He needs space. Being so near her muddies his thoughts, dangerously so. 

He freezes when her hand shoots up, catches his, keeps it pressed to her chest. 

For a moment she’s quiet, eyes tracing his face before settling on his eyes. She takes a step, closing the infinitesimal gap between him, lips parting a breath. 

Coruscant could implode and he wouldn’t notice. Every engineered fragment of his being is preoccupied with her, her scent, her heat, even the way her belly presses to his with each shallow breath she takes. 

He leans down, then hesitates, his lips a breath from hers. 

“Fox…”

His name is less that noise and more than a breath, more encouragement than he’s ever received. 

Lurching forward, he presses a kiss to her lips. 

Senses catching up to him, reminding him he’s not supposed to be kissing her, not supposed to want to, he starts to pull back, an apology already half formed on his tongue. 

Instead of the kiss breaking, the moment evaporating into the dream it clearly sprang from, Riyo leans forward, presses more firmly to him. His jacket slips from her shoulders, falls to the floor softly. 

“Don’t,” she whispers against his mouth. “Don’t stop. Please.”

Groaning, Fox catches her mouth again, parts her lips and tastes the Alderaanian wine still lingering there. 

Somehow she ends up pinned between him and the wall, her breath catching when he inadvertently grinds against her. He’s definitely putting the craftsmanship of his dress pants to the test. 

At first he’s not sure what to do with his hands, ends up bracing himself on the wall, Riyo caught between them. When she wraps an arms around his neck, her other hand raking through his hair, he stops fighting what fragment of self control he’s got left. 

Frantically, he pulls off his gloves, tosses them haphazardly away. 

One hand goes low on her back, runs down, over curves and shimmersilk, before gripping her thigh, hitching it up to his hip. 

His other hand trails up her back, settling at the base of her neck. 

Kissing down her neck he noses the edge of her dress away, makes his way along her collar bone before hoisting her up, burying his face between her breasts. 

If he died now, it would be in a more contented state than he’s ever known. 

She presses hot kisses over his forehead, rests her cheek against it for a moment before she slides down the wall. Kisses burn along his jaw, lips again, then his neck. 

Her fingers fumble with the collar, and Fox’s mind stumbles when he realizes what she’s doing. 

He knows brothers have had sex in the bathrooms at 79’s, gotten sexual favors in seedy alleys, even done things in the very corridor Fox and Riyo are in now. It’s not what he wants though. 

She deserves better. Maybe he does too. 

She makes a frustrated noise as the clasps refuse to come undone, lips puckering as she gives it a sullen glare. 

He’s never seen anyone so beautiful. Her hair mussed and the already sagging neckline is askew, pulled lower, the dark shadow of her left nipple cresting over the edge. 

Capturing her fingers, he presses a kiss to the tips, then her palm. 

Heart pounding and breath ragged, he rests his forehead against hers, free hand reaching up and his fingertips tracing the markings on her cheeks. 

“Not here.”

For a moment she looks like she might argue, blazing look in her eyes and lip quivering, then she sighs. 

Resting her hands on his shoulders, she nods. 

Breathing slowing, evening out, Fox pulls her to him, rests his chin on the top of her head. He swears he can feel her heartbeat through her chest. 

Nuzzling into his chest, Fox feels her nose press to him, takes a breath. 

“Do you know any secret passages to my apartment?”

Fox curls his finger at her waist, arms tightening around her. 

“I’ll find one.”

He’ll make one if he has too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hope was a good pay off for all the near misses. I’ll probably write one more chapter on this story, then I’m thinking about writing some little stories that may span different times in Fox and Riyo’s relationship and be a mix of silly, sweet, and serious. That’ll probably be a separate story from this, just because it won’t be linear necessarily. Anyways, have a good weekend y’all!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Wars, I only play with the characters.

Fox twirls a purple strand of Riyo’s hair on his finger as she nuzzles more firmly to his chest, her warm breath ghosting over his skin. 

She’d fallen asleep after reassuring him he’d not hurt her. 

“You were very gentle,” she told him, eyes hooded, voice thick and sleepy. “Perfect gentleman.”

He wasn’t sure how anyone could be a gentleman, let alone a perfect one, while sweaty and naked in bed, doing very ungentlemanly things with her, but he’d not questioned it. She’d been smiling softly, no hint of irony, just sated exhaustion, so he could only take her word for the truth. 

Closing his eyes, he smiles. 

He’d almost not made it to her apartment. The gala had lasted another two hours and he’d had to sneak off to find a new jacket before returning for the wrap up. Once all the senators were safely off and the clean up was underway, he’d ducked out with a simple but effective lie. 

“You ripped your pants?” Thorn asked over the earpiece, sounding on the verge of laughter. 

He’d never live it down, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

“Are we allowed to ask how?” Thire snickered. 

“No,” Fox grunted as he carefully made his way back to the barracks, through the back entrance. “Stone’s in charge for the wrap up.”

It was nothing short of a miracle they’d believed him. Clones were notoriously poor liars, something Fox blames on the Kaminoans. Cruel genetic tampering, no doubt. Not being able to see his face had been the only way he’d succeeded. His guilty expression would’ve been a dead giveaway.

As much as he hated lying to his brothers, this wasn’t something he wanted to share. They had so little privacy, few things that were wholly theirs, that he wanted even just a temporary taste of something being his.

He’d get tonight, at least, for himself.

Quick as he could, Fox changed out of his dress uniform, into his blacks and armor, then snuck out the back exit and up to his speeder bike. 

His HUD had provided him with a layout of the apartment complex, and he’d blinked through various prints until he found the droid corridors.

They were smaller than the ones in the senate building, and Fox had to crouch down and crawl on his hands and knees through dark and dusty passages, inching up narrow ramps for nearly an hour before he reached Riyo’s level. 

He’d had visions the entire time of getting stuck, having to call out for help and get rescued by his brothers. Explaining to them he was trying to stealth his way to a Senator’s private quarters for sex would’ve shamed him to death. 

Finally, he’d run into the wall that, according to his HUD, lead to her room.

With a little effort, a few nudges with his shoulder, a wedge to the gap, and a smack of his hand, the panel finally dislodged.

It had been pitch black, and for a moment Fox worried he’d picked a wrong part. His HUD cleared, showed clothing hung along the opposite wall. Then a door opened just out of his view, cutting the dark with warm light, and a soft voice broke the silence. 

“Fox?”

Heart stuttering, Fox grunted a response.

“Here.”

A moment later, Riyo’s face had appeared through the opening, eyes wide. 

“Are you stuck?” She’d worried her lip between her teeth, eyes darting around the little hole in her wall.

Fox shook his head. 

Hands gripping the edges, Fox had heaved himself through the opening and into the closet. 

Tumbling out, his bottom half rolled over his head and he landed with as much grace as a newborn baby tauntaun, into a pile of dresses.

Dropping down beside him, Riyo covered her smile with her hand. “Are you alright?”

Embarrassed but uninjured, his armor could take more of a beating than that, as could he, Fox shook his head again. “Fine.”

He’d busied himself with untangling a pair of pants that had caught on his leg after that, waiting for his face to return to a natural color before taking his helmet off.

Looking up, he’d found Riyo, watching him, smile gone, expression wary. Fox felt his stomach drop to his knees. He knew that look. Regret. 

He shouldn’t have come. 

“Fox?” She finally said, eyes dropping to her lap. “I-you know this-I…”

She let out a huff. 

“I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

Fox frowned, too baffled for speech, stared at her as warnings began flashing in the periphery of his HUD.

“I know-I’ve heard about some of the other senators, their families and staff, they’ve...propositioned you and your men, and,” Fox popped the seals and pulled his helmet off as she continued to babble, “I-I didn’t-I’m not trying to use you like that...if-you weren’t obligated to come-or-or do anything…”

Reaching out, Fox tipped her chin up.

“I don’t feel obligated, or forced, or...propositioned,” he’d assured her. “I came because I wanted to.”

Which he felt confirmed Saché’s accusation that he was horny. He’d definitely felt the part of a pervert as he crawled through cramped corridors imagining carnal pleasures waiting for him at the end.

Cupping her cheek, he’d run his thumb over the markings there, swallowed down his doubts. 

Lips quirking up, she’d reached up, held his hand more firmly to her cheek before pressing a kiss to his gloved palm. 

“I’m glad.”

Leaning in, Fox felt her breath, cool and sweet, and cursed himself for not freshening himself up. He probably had caf breath and was sweaty…

Not that any of that mattered to Riyo, apparently. She lurched forward, pressed her lips to his. 

Fox’s brain and every ounce of good sense he possessed vanished. 

He vaguely remembers pulling her into his lap, tossing his gloves, then rolling, somehow ending up twisted in some shiny headdress.

Breath heaving, Riyo tried to kick it off several times before laughing. 

“I think we need to get off the floor and out of my closet.” She’d winced, knocked on his armor. “And maybe lose the armor? It’s a bit...hard.”

Fox snorted and very nearly told her his armor wasn’t the only thing hard, but got distracted by her nightgown, bunched up so high on her thighs he could see the lace on her panties.

Grunting, he’d pulled her up with him, scooped her up and carried her out.

After that his armor had been scattered around the room, then his blacks peeled off and thrown before he’d lifted her gown off and tossed it. Then they’d had to rip open the inner lining of his jacket to retrieve the lone condom from where it was trapped. 

It glowed blue in the dark and Riyo had gotten the giggles as Fox struggled with it, but it was the only option, and it had done its job well.

They were both a bit awkward, clumsy and fumbling at times, but Fox can’t imagine it being any better. 

He’s certain he’s committed to memory every noise she made, the scent of her skin, the way she moved with him. He’ll die happy if those are his last memories. 

Sighing, Fox opens his eyes, runs his hand down Riyo’s back. She shivers, nuzzles her nose against his chest, eyelashes fluttering open, brushing featherlight against his skin.

She tilts her head, peers up at him through a few wayward strands of her hair. 

“You’re awake?” 

Fox smiles, brushes the strands from her face. 

“I’ve got to go soon,” he whispers, sorry to break the quiet of the night. “They’ll see I’m gone if I don’t get back before long.”

If they haven’t already. Thorn, Stone, and Thire probably noticed when they got back to the barracks, but they mercifully hadn’t commed him. Most likely they’d tracked his bucket’s signal and were plotting endless embarrassment for him.

As Riyo stretches, back arching and her warm skin pressing more closely to his, he finds himself not caring. All their taunting will be worth the night of bliss he’s had. 

She settles down again, cheek pressed over his heart, fingers tracing a pattern on his bicep, lets out a sigh. 

“Just a little while longer?”

In one swift move, Fox rolls, pins her to the mattress, muffles her squeal with a kiss. 

She doesn’t have to ask twice. 

-

Riyo watches from the bed, sheets hugged to her chest, as Fox dresses. 

The sun hasn’t come over the horizon yet, but it’s rays are slowly lightening the morning sky. He has to be gone before it peeks over. 

His black under shirt and pants had been easy enough to find, but he’d had to fish several pieces of his plastoid armor from under the bed and the dresser and his gloves are still missing. 

“Found them,” she hears him grunt from the closet, emerging with his helmet tucked under his arm as he pulls his gloves on. 

Getting up, Riyo wraps her sheet more snugly around her, searches for her discarded night gown. Better for her to find it and not the cleaning droid, or Gettsi. 

“Did you see my gown?” 

Nodding, Fox steps back in the closet. When he re-emerges his cheeks are red as a Malastar sun.

“Here,” he mumbles. “Found your-ah-panties, too.”

Riyo nearly laughs at how awkwardly he holds the items out to her, amused that he’s so unwound by panties. He’d pulled them off only hours before, after all.

Taking them and her gown, her eyes widen. 

The texture is all wrong, the color is a bright pink, and she can smell jogan fruit. Edible panties. 

“Gettsi,” she hisses. She must’ve brought them in the day before. Tossing the underwear away as quickly as possible before forcing a smile for Fox. “Those weren’t mine. My aide, Gettsi, she’s…”

Riyo waves a hand, then shrugs.

There are no words for Gettsi. 

Glancing up, she sees Fox shooting the panties a wary look before nodding.

“Understood.”

He fusses with his gloves for a moment, tugging at the wrists, before sighing.

“I need to get a move on.”

Riyo nods, takes his hand and gives it a squeeze as she peers up at him. She wants to ask if he regrets their night, if he’s going to avoid her, but instead asks, “Will I see you today?”

Shifting his bucket under his arm, his eyes drop to her feet.

“Unless you’d rather I avoid-”

“No.”

His eyes rise, first tracing along her shoulder then up to meet her eyes. A tiny smile ticks at the edges of his lip. 

Riyo reaches out, presses her palm to his cheek, already a bit rough with stubble. 

“I’d rather you not leave me now, but we aren’t given that option, are we?”

Fox covers her hand with his, presses her fingers to his lips. 

“I’d rather not leave you now.” He sighs, glances at the chrono on her bedside table. “You’re right though, that really isn’t an option.”

He leans in, gives her a quick kiss, then backs away and into the dark closet. 

Riyo follows him, watches as he puts his helmet on, then crawls in the gap in the clothes and into space behind the wall.

She pulls the clothes together once he’s replaced the panel, hiding the slight break. 

For a moment she stares at it, wishing he’d come tumbling back though. No, she wishes he could use the door like every other being. That’s not their life though. If it were, they’d still be in bed, waiting for sunrise in each other’s arms. 

After a few minutes, and the harsh reality that their relationship isn’t so simple, Riyo sighs and wanders back into her room. She’s got some straightening up to do. 

-

Fox sneaks in the back entrance, hears the soft snores of brothers asleep in the barracks as he creeps down the hall toward his office. 

Quietly and carefully as disarming a bomb, he opens his door and sighs. The room is empty when he steps in.

“Well, well, well. Look what the akk dragged in.”

Or so he thought. 

Fox huffs, turns and finds Thorn and Stone on the sofa, Thire still asleep in one of the rickety chairs that normally sits in front of Fox’s desk, a deck of sabacc cards gripped in one hand. 

Stone smacks Thire’s leg. “Wake up. Our missing Commander has reappeared.”

Thire jerks awake, dropping the cards as he tries to settle himself in a more dignified position. 

“Where have you been, young man?” Thorn asks, standing and rounding Fox, inspecting him. “We have been up all night worried sick about you.”

Fox rolls his eyes, waves a hand at Thire, still yawning and rubbing his eyes. “I can see that.”

“Well, we would have, if we hadn’t tracked your bucket.” Stone pops his neck and grins. “Hope you got a good night's rest with the Senator.”

Thire snorts. “Are you joking? He spent the night with a beautiful woman, if all he did was sleep I’ll be sorely disappointed.”

Stone nods. 

“Good point.” He jabs a finger at Fox. “I hope you’re so spent you can’t walk.”

Thorn claps him on the back. “Do you need new blacks, vod?”

Fox only glares in response. 

“Yeah, wrong thing to focus on,” Thorn says. “How’s the senator’s hips?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Fox shakes his head. 

He may be a pervert, but his brothers are idiots. 

They ask a few more questions, mostly if he’d taken the vibrating or glowing condoms, and how he liked having a real bed with a proper mattress for once, before quieting. 

Opening his eyes, Fox looks around at them. 

“You know we’re only teasing you, right?” Stone finally asks, reaching out and bracing his hand on Fox’s shoulder. “We’re happy for you.”

Thire nods. 

“Yeah, she’s a nice lady, one of the good ones, and she’s clearly got good taste in men.” He grins when Fox huffs “Though only when it comes to looks. Your personality leaves a lot to be desired.”

Fox rolls his eyes.

Thorn nudges him, gives him a reassuring smile. 

“We are happy for you, vod. We wiped your location from the system for you already.” He crosses his arms. “This stays between us brothers here.”

There’s no hint of insincerity, no mocking. They’re his brothers, and they’re willing to make allowances for his happiness. 

Fox feels his lips twitch up. 

“Thanks.”

Thorn’s smile widens and he musses Fox’s hair. 

“Now, tell us, seriously, do you need new blacks?” 

Fox shoves him away.

-

Riyo dressed and righted her room, straightened the sheets and cleaned up as best she could before nodding off again for a few hours. Her sheets smelled of Fox, very human and musky, and she’d buried her face in the pillow that had the sharp scent of his shampoo on it and dozed. 

She wakes again in the bright morning light, Gettsi knocking on her door.

“Senator?” She calls through the door. “Time to get up. You've got that early morning meeting with Senator Organa and Senator Amidala, remember?”

She had, in fact, forgotten it.

Groaning, still exhausted, she sets up and hits the control, opening the door.

“Goodness, you didn’t seem like you’d had too much to drink last night,” Gettsi comments, lowering her voice a fraction. 

Riyo rubs her eyes as she yawns, shakes her head. 

“I’m not hung over. I’m just...sor-tired.”

Sore, she’s sore, but in a good way. She feels like she’s climbed a mountain and is still riding the high of it.

Humming, Gettsi goes to the closet, humming, gathers up Riyo’s outfit for the day then brings it out and deposits it on the bed before waddling toward the fresher. 

“I’ll draw you a bath. It’ll ease your muscles.” She shakes her head. “Dancing wore you out? Need a little stamina built up.”

Getting up, Riyo stretches before starting toward the fresher, stopping when Gettsi comes out, eyes narrowed. 

She sniffs the air, eyes widening. “You had sex.”

Freezing, Riyo stares at her for a moment before shaking the shock off. 

“What are you talking about, Gettsi?”

Gettsi’s grin widens as she presses a hand to her chest. “Goddess, you did! He must’ve done a proper job of it too, you’re even walking off kilter!”

Mortified but refusing to admit to anything, Riyo shakes her head. 

“It was the dancing. That’s all. It’s how I ripped my dress, remember? I told you that last night.” She sighs. “Besides, do you see anyone in here? I’m no Jedi. I can’t use the Force to bring lovers to and from my room.”

“There’s always a way,” Gettsi reassures her. 

And she’s probably got more than a few tales proving that statement. 

Chuckling, she reaches out, pats Riyo’s cheek.

“Child, if you’re going to lie, you’d best make sure you don’t leave evidence.” She jerks her head toward the fresher. “Condom is in the bin. Still glowing a bit, actually. Senator Taa certainly purchased high quality ones.”

For a moment Riyo is quiet, then she groans, buries her face in her hands. 

“Good thing your commander saved a few from that box. Humans are notoriously fertile.”

Peeking through her fingers, Riyo watches Gettsi’s amused expression for a moment before her hands drop. 

“Gettsi, I’m not admitting to anything, but...you will keep this between us, won’t you?”

Smile softening, Gettsi takes Riyo’s hand and pats it. 

“Won’t breath a word of it to anyone. I’m not one to ruin a good romance,” she assures her. Then, after a pause, adds, “Or a good screw. You are definitely going to need more condoms.”

Riyo grimaces. 

“Thanks, Gettsi.”

-

Fox keeps his hand at the pouch on his belt, where he’s tucked Riyo’s scarf. 

It’s his poor excuse for visiting her, should anyone ask. 

Stepping off the service elevator, he stays close to the wall, skirting past several aides as they ignore him and seemingly study datapads and scurry off to do their senator’s busy work. 

When he reaches her open door, he pauses, takes a breath.

She’s at her desk, elbow propping her as she gazes at a datapad, delicate finger flicking through whatever she’s reading. Her nose wrinkles at something, then she huffs, taps the pad a few more times. 

Slowly breathing out, Fox knocks. 

Looking up, her expression morphs, from annoyed confusion to what Fox hopes is relieved delight in the span of a breath.

“Fox!”

She flushes, eyes widening as he taps the control on the door, shutting it.

“I forgot it was open,” she admits, getting up and crossing to him, an apologetic smile on her lips as she takes his hand. “I was just-I didn’t expect you so early.”

Fox smiles, reaches out and rights her headdress where it's tilted slightly before steering her deeper into the office, out of the eyeline of any troopers who may be on patrol on the opposite roof.

He wants to tell her he wanted to make sure she didn’t regret things between them. He needed to see for himself their night together wasn’t some fantasy he’d fabricated.

He had to see she wasn’t simply being polite when she said she wished he didn’t have to go. 

Her expression, unambiguously pleased, and the way her golden eyes seem to glow as she pops up on her toes and presses a soft kiss to his lips answers all his questions and quells all his fears in the span of a heartbeat. 

She regrets nothing. Their night had been real. Her wish for him to stay was genuine. 

“I brought your scarf back,” he tells her, popping open his pouch and tugging it out. He holds it out for her. “I had the blood laundered out.”

Both her hands wrap around his, curl his fingers back in on the scarf as she smiles up at him. 

“I think you should keep it. It may come in handy as an excuse if you come to see me.”

“When,” he corrects her, cheeks warming. “When I come to see you.”

Her smile softens. “When.”

She takes a step closer, barely leaving breathing space between them.

“Besides, I still have your jacket.” Her cheeks darken. “I’ve got to get it repaired.”

Fox chuckles at the memory, him frantically tearing at the seams to get to the one and only condom. 

“To be fair, I was the one who ripped it up.”

She leans in. “I encouraged you.”

That she had.

Pushing his hand, scarf still gripped in it, toward his chest, Riyo kisses his knuckles. 

“Will you come by this evening?” She bites her lip. “I can sneak some dinner into my room. We can have a picnic on the floor.”

Fox has never had a picnic, unless she counted ration bars eaten in a rush during serial live fire exercises as a cadet. He doesn’t think that counts though. 

“It’ll be Pantoran, but...I think you’ll like it.”

He’s liked what he’s had of Pantora so far. Their food should be no different. 

Leaning in, he rests his forehead to hers. 

“It’ll be late,” he warns, which is an understatement. 

If he’s lucky, and if Thorn has mercy on his worthless shebs, he may be able to sneak over sometime after midnight. It’s a dismal outlook, and he wouldn’t blame her if she found it unappealing.

“Good things are worth waiting for,” she whispers back. “Is it a date?”

Fox’s lips twitch. He’s never had a date either. 

His freehand drifts to her waist, squeezes gently. 

This may not last. For all Fox knows, it may be nothing more than a bright moment in his short and ragged life. All they’ll ever have is stolen moments, and that may wear her thin, ruin this fragile thing.

But for now, even if it’s only one good stretch before the painful end, it’s something he wants, something she wants, and that’s enough.

Leaning in, he catches her lips, smiles into the kiss. 

“It’s a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: And it’s over! I hope the wrap up wasn’t a let down. My plan is to revisit these two at times, with little glimpses into their lives, but not sure when that‘ll come to be. Anyways, hope y’all enjoy this.


End file.
